Twisted intestines, hairy meat patties and the long hallway

I got your attention with that one, didn't I? How you wonder, do these three things go together? I'll tell you.

It all started a long time ago in a place far away. Like most of my stories, this one takes place out in the middle of nowhere on the farm I grew up on. (Part of this story is really sad so you might want to go ahead and get some tissues ready. Heck, I need to get tissues ready because every time I think about it, I get sad.) Now, back to the story. My ultra beloved Mom got sick when I was about 10 or 11 (I think). I vaguely remember her laying around for a few days not feeling so hot. After that all hell broke loose. As it turned out, Mom had some intestinal thing going on and it got soooooo bad, her intestine twisted and then became horribly infected.

By the time Mom made it to her doctor, she was so ill, he ordered an ambulance to take her across the parking lot to the hospital! The old grim reaper was hovering nearby. She had to have major surgery and for a while there, her chances were hovering around the 'not great' side. During the time that she was in the hospital, I had to go live at a friends house. I don't know how long I was there for sure but it seemed like about 5 years. I remember my friend's Mom being really sweet to me and trying to comfort me. I was afraid that I would never see my Mom again! How horrifying! During the day while I was in school, any time a teacher would make reference to mothers, I would start crying all over again. It was one of the worst times in my entire life.

Thankfully, Mom slowly started getting better and I got to visit her in the hospital. I remember not being able to even touch her bed because the movement hurt her so much. Poor baby. After for ever and ever, Mom finally got to go home. Hooray! But her recovery was far from over.

(OK, the sad part is over - get ready for the funny part)

My dear old Dad was trying to play the part of Mother and Father, so he was stretched a bit thin I think. When Mom finally felt like eating some food, Dad went into hyper overdrive. He decided to make a delicious meal of broiled hamburger patties and other stuff. It was smelling pretty good and Mom was slowly making her way down our long, long, long hallway towards the kitchen when the unthinkable happened. In Dad's haste to get the meat back into the oven after checking it, he neglected to perform one crucial task. He didn't open the oven door! He had a large tray full of yummy, sizzling chuck patties and he slammed that sucker right into the closed door which caused everything to go sailing all over the kitchen.

One of my idiot brothers happened to witness the whole affair and instead of keeping his big yapper shut and helping Dad clean up the mess, he began laughing at the top of his lungs. I wasn't sure what was going to happen but I felt pretty sure that whatever it was, it would involve Dad somehow killing my brother. Apparently, Mom thought the same thing and she was doing her darnedest to beat feet down the long, long, long hallway. I think she hit a lightning speed of 5 inches per hour!!!

About five of the following minutes is a bit of a blur and I can't remember exactly what happened. I do remember that all of us but Mom ended up picking up the burger patties and trying to clean them the best we could. I think we rinsed them with water then stuck them back on the pan and put them back into the oven. But there's one distinct thing I do remember about those patties...

At the time, we had a Dalmatian named Screwey. She was a sweet doggie and sometimes we'd let her into the house. For those of you who don't know Dalmatians, let me tall you - they shed like crazy. Screwey had been in our kitchen and she had shed like crazy there. The patties had landed on the floor that Screwey had shed on. Are you getting the picture? That's one of the reasons we rinsed the patties in water. We didn't want to eat hairy burgers. And we absolutely didn't want Mom to have to eat dog hair!

As you can probably imagine, Dad finally calmed down a little bit, my brother wasn't killed, and my Mom finally made it back down the hall to the kitchen for dinner. We all sat down to eat and were mighty pleased to see that Mom had an appetite. Unfortunately, I think she got the hairiest meat patty of all.

(Those white specks are supposed to represent all of the dog hairs that were on Mom's patty. No, they are NOT worms!!!)


So now you know how twisted intestines, hairy meat patties and a long, long, long hallway go together!