The joys of working with kids!

The following is a journal entry from April 2008...I thought you might all enjoy...(one of my sister June's favorite stories of mine=)....Jay and Jess LOVE when I tell this story and often laugh until their sides ache!...and for the record, they are STILL scared to death of any kind of bugs!

April 3, 2008- So here I am at work. The kids just got home. Their karaoke machine in the basement comes on (for some reason it’s on a timer) and I tell them to go down and shut it off. They head downstairs to the basement

I’m at the sink when I hear a blood curling SCREAM!!!

Screaming , crying and hollering for me to "help them" and "save them".

All that’s running through my head is "OH MY WORD! There must be someone in the house and they are hiding in the basement attacking my kids!! Grab a knife and cut ’em down! Don’t touch my kids on my time!!"

I get to the basement door, butcher knife in hand, and the kids are hysterically screaming the whole way up running at full force like someone is CHASING them!

It was surreal, nerve wracking and absolutely SCARY but I was ready to protect these kids from this psycho.


They reach the top and I’m ready to throw them outside, tell them to call 911 and go after this person when I scream "What’s the matter" into their screeching, tear-streaked faces they yell back

"It’s a bug!!!!"

I wanted to KILL them!!! The next five min I was shaking violently from my adrenaline rush and chastising them for taking 10 years off my life!

10 years I CAN’T afford, mind you, I am almost 30 after all!!!!!!

As I calm my nerves at the sink and put the knife away, I hear the dog bark and suddenly the blood curling screams and tears return. I holler out, "What’s the matter NOW!!!!!!" They are at the closed basement door sobbing for their barking dog in the basement sure that he’s met his demise by the strange bug. "HELLO" I called, "He’s only barking cause you need to open the door and let him up!!" Walking over to the basement door and flipping the door open, sure enough, there’s Lucky just waiting to be let up.



The kids stand with huge eyes as I grab a bottle of Windex and head down the stairs to kill this stupid trouble-making pain of a bug. I close the door behind me and laugh to myself about their reactions to such a small creation!


I had to bite back the urge to scream on the top of my lungs "OH NO! IT GOT ME!!!!!" But, I was sure if I did that I would have come upstairs to find two passed out children and then I would have to revive them!

I head to the karaoke machine which has been playing this whole time and flick it off in annoyance, sticking my tongue at it because it started this whole situation.


I turn to my left and there laying on the floor is the poor bug. Barely moving and clearly close to death I sprayed the thing with 2 shots of Windex and put it out of it’s misery. It wouldn’t have survived out in the wild. No doubt the shrilling screams of the kids severed and destroyed any type of hearing and/or direction sense the poor thing every had.


At this point, I hear more screaming upstairs and I yell up asking what is it. They apparently had been calling me and didn’t get a response and assumed this helpless dead bug had eaten me and was coming for them.


This whole situation was becoming less and less funny and I was pretty sure with all their high pitched shrilling screams that all the dogs in the neighborhood have fallen over whining with their paws jammed into their ears

Scooping up the dead bug I marched up the stairs calling for the kids to get away from the garbage, lest they be there when I throw this dumb thing out and pass out at the sight of it.


I round the corner and where are they hovered, hugging each other and crying, in the closest chair to the GARBAGE CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tossing the dead thing into the trash I stared at them in disbelief and shook my head....such sissy-la-la's


So hear I am smiling at the end of this all and wondering.....

Did that bug have a sibling that we’ll meet one day soon?????