Everything Let Loose at Once

By Barbie-Jo Smith

How many of us make plans, assume an outcome only to have it all go terribly wrong? I know I have. I learned to recognize the shift from everyday to atypical from my dad. He was the master of crisis management and Plan B thinking and I am a chip of the old block! A regular work day turned into a gummy, hardened experience as Dad discovered that his mind had been occupied while he was dressing. Everything let loose mid-morning at the office. The result was a trip home to start all over again. Who would think that a quiet horseback ride in the back country could turn into an wild gallop worthy of any Roy Rogers movie. The smell of the country, feeling one with my mount and my curiosity about what would happen if I gave him a “wee flick of the reins” produced an outcome that neither horse nor rider expected. The desire to create a beautiful Christmas manger scene went off the rails when male dogs in the area discovered the tantalizing elixir of each other’s marking scents. The resulting canine traffic jam, set against the background of the Holy Family, created a riotous result that lasted through to the following spring. Trying to instill domestic skills into a couple of tomboys was a Home Economics experiment gone terribly wrong. Those two tried the patience of any saint as they bumbled their way through sewing and cooking classes. Did the instructors survive? What ever became of the tomboys? Propelled by the desire to save money, and the underestimation of how much “junk” people can collect, resulted in a frozen, mind-numbing half-ton moving escapade during the coldest part of the winter. Lessons learned about mother nature and human nature are revealed as we travel along with the “moving crew!” We all have “if only” or “maybe I should have thought that through” times in our lives – times when everything lets loose at once. We speed off in a different direction and often encounter some of our best experiences. Many times we have the opportunity to learn something new or see a different perspective that we might never have had if events hadn’t gone wildly astray. The let loose parts of life, while surprising and wildly funny at times, are likely the best part of all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dream Write Publishing
• Release date: Nov 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781927510896

Book preview

How many of us make plans, assume an outcome only to have it all go terribly wrong? I know I have. I learned to recognize the shift from everyday to atypical from my dad. He was the master of crisis management and Plan B thinking and I am a chip of the old block!

A regular work day turned into a gummy, hardened experience as Dad discovered that his mind had been occupied while he was dressing. Everything let loose mid-morning at the office. The result was a trip home to start all over again.

Who would think that a quiet horseback ride in the back country could turn into an wild gallop worthy of any Roy Rogers movie. The smell of the country, feeling one with my mount and my curiosity about what would happen if I gave him a wee flick of the reins produced an outcome that neither horse nor rider expected.

The desire to create a beautiful Christmas manger scene went off the rails when male dogs in the area discovered the tantalizing elixir of each other’s marking scents. The resulting canine traffic jam, set against the background of the Holy Family, created a riotous result that lasted through to the following spring.

Trying to instill domestic skills into a couple of tomboys was a Home Economics experiment gone terribly wrong. Those two tried the patience of any saint as they bumbled their way through sewing and cooking classes. Did the instructors survive? What ever became of the tomboys?

Propelled by the desire to save money, and the underestimation of how much junk people can collect, resulted in a frozen, mind-numbing half-ton moving escapade during the coldest part of the winter. Lessons learned about mother nature and human nature are revealed as we travel along with the moving crew!

We all have if only or maybe I should have thought that through times in our lives – times when everything lets loose at once. We speed off in a different direction and often encounter some of our best experiences. Many times we have the opportunity to learn something new or see a different perspective that we might never have had if events hadn’t gone wildly astray. The let loose parts of life, while surprising and wildly funny at times, are likely the best part of all.

I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Note of Thanks

A Special thank you to my peer reviewers, Karen Probert,

Aisha Amin, Laura Morrow, and Sue Hyde.

Your feedback has greatly helped me put this book together.

I value your professional dedication to detail and, more importantly, your warm friendship.

Rope

My oldest daughter, Jen, was visiting. Because she and her family lived a couple of hours away, we lunged for the coffee and sat at the dining room table to catch up. Her young son, Steve, who was about six years old at the time, had taken himself away somewhere in the house to play. He knew the house well and loved its unusual nooks and crannies. They were great for kid hideouts. The house also featured an unusual catwalk style hallway that overlooked the living room/dining room areas. The builders had eliminated a solid wall that would have made a normal hallway connecting the areas in the upstairs and closing it off from the downstairs. In place, they built a railing which opened the area, producing a balcony effect with lots of light from the big windows on the main floor. One could see what was going on downstairs without actually having to come down. The railing was great for draping things, such as quilts, or for weaving Christmas lights. It was also a wonderful way to exchange items between floors by either dropping them down over the railing or between the slats to waiting hands below or throwing them up to be caught above.

The catwalk was also a first-rate place for a little boy to play. He felt connected to what was going on in the rest of the house, but still had his private play area, which became his secret fort. Did Steve ever love building forts! He pressed just about everything he could find into service, translating them into building materials. The results were intricate structures of complicated design. He worked efficiently and one didn’t even realize there was a forting engineer at work because he was so quiet. Steve was an efficient roper. He loved tying knots in anything that was long and thin. Consequently, there was generally a web of string and rope being tied together to form a base for other constructions. As proficient as he was at tying, in true kid style, he wasn’t very interested in deconstruction. After he went home, we had to be careful where we walked lest we stumble over a forgotten roping and go headlong down the stairs or over the back of a chair.

When Steve came to stay overnight, he loved making a sleeping fort in our walk-in closet. It didn’t seem odd to us, he was close at hand if he needed us and, the more importantly, he was perfectly happy. He would go around the house finding all the things he needed to make a comfortable fort. The ghetto blaster was installed in a convenient place; as was a clock, flashlight, books and toys, and snacks. He was literally a happy camper. To deliver a good night kiss, I had to crawl on hands and knees under the bed sheet roof and snuggle for a visit, to read a story, and to plan the next day’s adventures. It was remarkably comfortable. To access clothes, I held onto the edge of the door and swung around the corner with some momentum to grab the targeted article. One slip of the anchoring hand delivered the swinger onto the top of the fort creating a disaster tantamount to an earthquake. Of course, immediate reconstruction had to occur punctuated by the delivery of breakfast in fort!

There were times when I was caught up in the excitement of building a secret fort. Steve’s bedroom was a great place, not only because the construction debris was at his house, but because we could string a rope from the curtain rod to the clothes rod in the closet. Essentially, this was across the entire room and served as the backbone for the high-roofed model of fort. Add two or three cross ropes and the makings of the CN tower were born. On one occasion, we tipped up his mattress to form a wall, incorporating it into the rope web for support. The bedding was used to form hallways and soon we had created a multi-room fort. When rope was tied tight, anchoring an object, the action was referred to as anking. Steve was the Anking King.

No fort is complete without the injection of daily activities. Therefore, snacks or outright meals were more enjoyable in the comfort of a fort. The skillful placement of pillows created beds and lounge areas where one could have a nap. The addition of a radio served as the entertainment centre. No respectable fort is without crayons, colouring books, cars, trucks, and miscellaneous games and rope. The construction phase was always the best fun, but not to be undervalued, moving into the fort was exciting, too. Of course, occupying the fort pointed out certain deficiencies, so tweaks were an ongoing process in the full development of the hideaway. That was the most fun.

Then there were times when disaster visited. Sometimes a crucial rope snapped or slipped off an anchoring area. If we were inside the fort, we were immediately covered with covers! Finding our way out from underneath a pile of blankets and sheets was a daunting task; however, Steve seemed to possess an escape radar and we were soon repairing the damage. Sometimes the disaster was bedtime when the fort had to be dismantled and re-assembled back into the bed it was originally. There was always a period of mourning at the loss of a good fort, but that was quickly followed by exuberant plans for the next one.

That day so long ago when we two women sat chatting is etched in my memory. I had been aware of Steve buzzing around here and there, but didn’t realize that he had been quietly plying his trade. When we finished talking, I attempted to stand only to discover that I had been stealthily and completely lashed to the chair.

Dremel Heart

A few years after the movie Braveheart was released, Steve moved into another phase of invention. He had always loved to tinker and very often took apart objects, studied them, and then put them back together. Well... he nearly always reassembled them. Sometimes he would become bored with the project and parts would be absconded for a new project, leaving the original one in a state of partial reconstruction. One of the tools he discovered as a pretty fine implement was the rotary tool most commonly known as the dremel.

Although Dremel is a brand name, it became the reference name for Steve’s current project of interest. They appealed to him because they were tools that had many accessories to carve, engrave, polish, cut, grind, scrape, rout, and sand. Steve was an accessory guy! Lots of little attachments, made plenty of noise, and produced spectacular results in minutes—perfect for a small boy. He had a case with interchangeable tips and had it positioned for easy access. Because he loved dremeling so much, and in the spirit of the movie, we named him Dremel Heart. In the movie, William Wallace speaks his famous line, Every man dies, but not everyman really lives. It applied to Steve.

Every man dies, but not every man really dremels!

Duct Tape

If there was a shortage of building materials such as rope, clothes pins to join sheets, scarves to tie things together or, heaven forbid, a shortage of rope, then Plan B was immediately trotted out. Rope was an essential part of Steve’s life. That little boy could tie, knot, anchor, pull, drag, lift, lower, catch, and release almost anything in his world. While it was the backbone of his construction, soon another item became a hot commodity. It was the innocent introduction of duct tape. Steve was literally and figuratively stuck on it, and it opened up a whole new avenue of creativeness, not necessarily limited to fort building.

Long before the invention of patterned, trendy tapes that came in all sizes and weights, what was available was standard industrial duct tape. The small role was great for a little boy, but a gift of a large roll sent him into a paroxysm of joy. That roll had 60 yards of tape. Do you have any idea what a little boy who loves to tie can do with that much duct tape? It didn’t take long for him to incorporate it into all phases of his little boy career.

Duct tape had been developed during World War II to keep moisture out of ammunition cases. Spring forward three generations and it was a different kind of ammunition in the hands of the Anking King. He was now the Anking, Taping, and Dremel King!

Everyone in the family caught on and soon Steve had a supply of tape that would last him years. He taped everything whether it needed tape or not. He created whole sets of toys, villages, roads, weapons, and implements using duct tape. Sometimes his taping was well received and even a blessing because he could repair almost anything through the application of liberal layers of tape. His expertise spread throughout the family and new ideas were born. It was the beginning of his construction career. Tape was well respected by all members of our family.

One summer his Auntie Jess used duct tape to shorten the pants of her uniform. Tape was also great for attaching extras to one’s bicycle, holding on bits and pieces of cars that were less than new. I have personally taped my side mirror onto my car—twice. The second time it happened the tape stayed on for quite a while because it was silver and matched the color of my old car. I’ve always credited Steve for my personal duct tape expertise. Eventually enough was enough for Steve’s mother. She put her food down after encountering tape on every surface in the house. We were instructed not to send any more tape until further notice. It was a gift to her sanity.

It’s a roping and taping world out there. Now that he’s grown and running his own business, which by the way necessitates the heavy use of all three technologies, Steve is in heaven. He was born inventive and his motto is: If need be, we can tie, tape, and grind the heck out of anything!

You’ll Only Need a Little Bit!

I squeezed the tiny decorative bottle depositing a silver dollar-sized glob of bath gel into the water. Looking down, I realized I had missed my target, which was the agitating jet, and the glob just drifted away. Subscribing to the theory that a little was good so more should be better, I squeezed out another load, this time about a quarter of a cup.

Perfect! I said, as I watched the bubbles begin to foam.

My husband, Dave, and I were on a two-day winter holiday at a beautiful small town inn. Our accommodation was a one-room miner’s cabin at the back of the property. It was very private and just right for two people who needed a time out from busy lives. The cabin had been restored and redecorated with a queen-size bed alcove featuring fancy bedding with a wild flower pattern. The floors were gleaming hardwood with folksy throw rugs strewn about. Plenty of windows let the light into the cabin and a fireplace made the room extra cozy.

The best part was a two-person Jacuzzi area situated in one corner, finished with tile floors and surrounded by glass blocks for warmth and ultra privacy. The edges of the tub were decorated with fancy soaps and a pretty little bottle of the aforementioned bubble gel.

Oh, this is going to be fun, Dave reported, with a grin slowly spreading across his face.

We’ll love the bubbly warmth and relaxation. I’ll just bet we’ll sleep well tonight, I added, noticing his leer! Any way you looked at it, the cabin was just grand.

As I had been packing for this trip I hadn’t been careful and rammed my hand into a glass shelf in the medicine cabinet. The sharp edge sliced the top of my right index knuckle, peeling it back in a flap. It bled as if I had lopped off my entire wrist. I quickly replaced the flap and applied pressure while pondering how to proceed. It was obvious that I needed stitches, but I sure wasn’t interested in spending hours in a hospital emergency room. I knew that the edges would eventually seal together, so enlisting Dave’s help, he bandaged it tightly to hold the whole mess together. The result wasn’t pretty but it sure was effective. Because I didn’t want to get that finger wet while washing up, I threw in several pairs of vinyl lab gloves and an elastic band. That decision turned out to be fortuitous.

We leaned back, wine glasses in hand, into the comfort and warmth of the two person love tub. The circulating water felt luxurious as it began to ease our stressed bodies.

What decadence, I sighed. The soft foam feels so great. There sure is a lot of it.

We noticed simultaneously that the second deposit was producing enough bubbles to cover the surface of the water. We played with the foam, running it up our arms like clothing, making bubble moustaches and hats. After more wine, it seemed as if there was quite a bit more froth, or was it our imaginations?

Apparently, the long lost first glob had finally come into contact with an underwater jet and was now springing to life. The foam grew steadily. A slight nagging worry began. The level crept to our shoulders and up the back of our heads as we lay reclined. Sitting up helped for a minute, but still the bubbles multiplied right back up to shoulder level. If things stayed as they were, it would be just fine and we could continue sipping and chatting in comfort. This was unfortunately not to be the case. The suds doubled in volume and very soon Dave disappeared from my sight. I sliced the foam with my good hand to create a tunnel between us. More wine, clinking of glasses, and we were back in business for about ten seconds. The trough closed and we were separated in our individual bubble cocoons.

With the froth growing higher by the minute we were becoming alarmed. It was over our heads and beginning to flow over the edge of the tub and float up into the air. The spectra of a Lucy and Desi-like experience flashed before our eyes. To this point, I had managed with one hand, the other held elevated and gloved like a proctologist waiting for his patient. Even though it was encased in a vinyl glove with an elastic around my wrist, I didn’t want to take a change of getting it wet. We began pulling the foam back into the tub and piling it on the ever growing heap. Every now and then we would catch a fleeting glimpse of each other frantically scooping lather. The suds had now reached mountainous proportions, flowing over the edge of the tub down to the floor. The situation was out of control and I dived in with both hands.

We simultaneously realized that things might go better if we turned off the jets. The switch was about ten feet away as per safety code regulations. I elected to trot over to it.

When I stepped out of the tub, gallons of lather came with me. Glancing back, in the hope that I had cleared most of the overflow from the tub, I was shocked to see that the ones clinging to my body hadn’t made a dent in the total. It was rather like Gorillas in the Mist as I caught a brief glimpse of Dave. He was trying to beat back the foam and looked as though he was going under for the last time. That made me move as fast as I could across the terrazzo tile without falling on the now slimy floor. I must have looked like a yeti in a snow storm. Finally, after shutting off the source of the trouble, I scooted back towards the tub.