My Lemon Orchard Gets Fertilized: Tales of Real Life Misadventures

By Susan Hanf

Instead of making lemonade from lemons when her life took a wrong turn in 2005, author Susan Hanf instead planted an entire metaphorical lemon orchard. She's still tending her orchard in this follow-up to the entertaining My Lemon Orchard. With the same sense of humor, this new collection of entertaining short stories, My Lemon Orchard Gets Fertilized, describes some of the many misadventures Susan has experienced in her lifetime.

From childhood to adulthood, Susan's personal anecdotes provide a humorous look at life. From youthful adventures of finding a dead bullfrog in a creek, to being attacked by a three-inch long snake, or traversing a construction site fence only to be immersed in mounds of mud, Susan's stories remind us of our own early mischievousness. As adults, many of us can relate to her battles with a computer and other mechanical items, struggles with cooking, and challenges in tackling the ever elusive marathon.

With self-effacing humor and frankness, Susan reminds us we're not the only ones who experience misadventure. Join her on a walk through her lemon orchard you'll leave with a laugh and a smile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595612994

Susan Hanf

Susan Hanf is pursuing a master?s degree in business administration at Willamette University. She is currently writing a book about what it?s like to attend graduate school after the age of forty. Susan lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. Visit her online at www.mylemonorchard.com.

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Copyright © 2008 by Susan Hanf

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ISBN: 978-0-595-49902-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-49548-1 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-595-61299-4 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Lovingly dedicated to

Mom and Dad, as always

and my siblings

Tom

Theresa

Billy

Cathy

Ken

I don’t know how we survived childhood without killing one another

and

I can’t imagine my life without you.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgement

CHAPTER 1

LIVING IN THE LAND OF DORK

CHAPTER 2

HIDE AND GO SEEK

CHAPTER 3

CATHY AND THE BAT

CHAPTER 4

THE DAY I BECAME A WOMAN

CHAPTER 5

I HATE COMPUTERS

CHAPTER 6

BIG CITIES

CHAPTER 7

IT’S CALLED WORK FOR A REASON

CHAPTER 8

FOX ON A GOLF COURSE

CHAPTER 9

THINGS YOU’RE JUST SUPPOSED TO KNOW

CHAPTER 10

THE VELVEETA STORY

CHAPTER 11

GAME DAY

CHAPTER 12

OHIO STATE VERSUS MICHIGAN

CHAPTER 13

MARATHON WOMAN

CHAPTER 14

WHAT MEN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX

CHAPTER 15

MORE TRAVEL STORIES

CHAPTER 16

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

About the Author

Preface and Acknowledgement  

Until 2005, my writing experience was limited to business reports. However, during the first week in February of that year everything changed for me. In a period of five days I was dumped by the guy I was dating, came down with the flu then was fired from my new job of six months. As it turned out, this was the best thing that could have ever happened.

From this sour group of lemons that life pelted at me, I did not simply make lemonade … I planted a metaphorical lemon orchard. After selling my house, I took a year to travel the world and documented many of the funny, interesting, unexpected, and sometimes poignant experiences that came my way. The result was my first published book, My Lemon Orchard: Chronicles of an Amazing Year of Journeys.

Over the course of those journeys, my mind was free to wander back to other experiences from my life. Those stories made it into the first draft of my first book. My mother had graciously reviewed the work-in-progress and noted many times in the margin, What does this have to do with your year of travel?

Thank heavens that Mom saved me from myself. Had I continued writing in that manner that first book would have been a miserable drudgery to slog through, rather than the fun, engaging read that it turned out to be. An added benefit was that, unbeknownst to either Mom or me, she had planted a seed. My tangential recollections unwittingly provided fodder for this second book.

I hope that you enjoy your time with My Lemon Orchard Gets Fertilized and that you walk away with a laugh and a smile.

CHAPTER 1  

LIVING IN THE LAND OF DORK

I’m a dork. I admit it. Frankly, it’s become clear to me by this point in my life that I’ve taken up permanent residence in the Land of Dork. I can even go so far as to acknowledge that sometimes I reign supreme and unchallenged there. However, I believe that everybody is a dork in his or her own special way, whether they fess up to it or not is an entirely different matter. Even successful, wealthy people are not immune to periodic journeys to Dork. For example, the vice president of the United States of America accidentally shot a friend of his in the face. I rest my case.

I’ve come to realize that anyone who doesn’t believe that they live in or have visited the Land of Dork resides in the Land of Delusion. I know this because I went there once on temporary hiatus when I actually believed that I had life figured out. The sky was such a pretty shade of pink in the Land of Delusion. Well, it was until I removed my rose-colored glasses and realized that the color of the sky was no different than in the Land of Dork.

One can enter the Land of Dork either through his or her actions or because of stupid things that happen to them. One can also enter and exit the kingdom at any and all points in their life. My journey to Dork started early in life on a family vacation in the Great Smoky Mountains when I was five-years-old. I passed through the gates of Dork when I was outside playing with my siblings and cousins. As evening approached, dew began to descend upon the ground. That was when I managed to find and slip on the only patch of two-feet long cement within a one-mile radius, thereby permanently imbedding small pebbles into my skin. Dork via cement.

On a different occasion, when I was in that same age range, I was attending a baseball game in which one of my siblings was playing. I wasn’t watching the activity on the field … I was taking advantage of the timing. With Mom’s attention diverted by the action of the game, I was exploring a nearby recessed stairwell. It was my misfortune that at that exact moment the batter’s connection with the baseball forced that ball into foul territory. The foul territory happened to be that same recessed stairwell. Mom told me that everyone was confused as to why that baseball did not bounce up out of the stairwell it had entered. That confusion did not last long when the point of contact became obvious by my screams of surprised agony. The baseball made a perfect round indentation, and eventual bruise, in the soft flesh of my tender young arm. On the upside, at least it did not make contact with my head. Dork via baseball.

At the ripe old age of ten I decided to take our big Labrador retriever, Angie, for a walk in our woods. It had been raining. The leaves on the ground were slippery. This created the ideal environment for what was about to unfold. Angie spotted some woodland creature and took off after the thing. Because Angie’s dog leash was wrapped around my wrist, first my arm, and then my body, was pulled forward under the strength of her well-developed muscles. My gangly prepubescent frame offered little resistance. I grabbed for the leash with my available hand in a vain effort to free myself while unsuccessfully attempting to secure my footing on the slippery ground as Angie pulled me face-first into a big pine tree. Dork via dog.

During my eleventh year in Dork, I decided that my cat needed a bath. So, I proceeded down into the basement, filled a bucket with water then went in search of

my cat. Once I found her, I took her downstairs and placed her inside the liquid-filled container. While trying to hold her in the bucket with one hand, I reached forward to grab the soap with the other. That’s when I realized that my cat did not feel the need for a bath at that moment. This became clear to me when, while I was bent over in this particularly vulnerable position, she reached up behind me, grabbed my rear-end with her claws and launched herself out of the bucket. It’s fortunate that I was wearing jeans. Dork via cat.

It snowed a lot in Ohio in 1977. When I was twelve-years-old, our family took advantage of the impromptu ski resort that had opened up in relative proximity to where we lived. This was my first attempt at skiing. Well, that was the thought anyway; I didn’t get much skiing in … I spent the entire day fighting the towrope. Each time I grabbed onto that rope I was yanked forward with such force that my skis were pulled off of the ground; all of sudden I’d be in midair … I flew to the left, I flew to the right. I caught a lot of air that day, none of it while skiing.

Dork via towrope.

Did you ever slam your finger in the car door and not realize it? If you’re familiar with the map of Dork, you have. Shortly after I received my driver’s license at the age of sixteen, I drove to a friend’s house, got out of the car, slammed the car door and began walking away from the vehicle. All of the sudden I was jerked back to the car by my arm—it had been rendered immobile by the aforementioned slam in the door. The funny thing was that I felt no pain. I stood there for a second staring at my half-absent finger while contemplating what had happened then, with my available hand, pulled the car keys out of my pocketbook, unlocked the door and removed my wounded appendage.

I went into my friend’s house and, as devil-may-care as you can imagine, yakked away about how incredulous I was that my finger didn’t hurt while my friend searched for first aid items to stem the gushing flow of blood. My devil-may-care attitude lasted for about thirty minutes … at which time the feeling began returning to my finger. My screams could be heard in the next county. Dork via car door.

As I’ve aged, I’ve become comfortable with my life in the Land of Dork. For instance, when I was nineteen-years old, I took my first stab at employment when I became a waitress. I was exceedingly conscientious about doing a good job. One night, it became obvious that I’d taken that conscientiousness too far and had allowed myself to become overly invested in the job. It was not difficult for me to draw this conclusion because I woke up in the middle of the night and discovered that I was sitting upright in my bed, holding my pillow out as though it were a tray of food. Clearly, it was time to find alternate employment.

I’ve done this particular dork maneuver only periodically in my life, but the first time was at the age of twenty-five, so I know that this was not age-related. At the end of yet another busy, stressful day (among a blur of many), I went to the grocery store, did my shopping, paid for my items, and left the store … without the groceries. I consoled myself with the knowledge that, at least I realized my error when I arrived at the car … and hadn’t delayed the revelation until arriving home.

One morning when I was in my late twenties, I had to drag myself out of bed to prepare for work. I did not have a good night’s rest, so I dressed in a haze of exhaustion. The outfit I had chosen included a long, button-down shirt. As it had a straight hem, the shirt was designed to be worn outside of the pant. After a busy morning of meetings, I finally had time for a trip to the ladies’ room. Upon entering the room, I caught my reflection in the mirror; that’s when I discovered that I