Faster than a Speeding Building ... by Cindy Beck

© Cindy Beck, 2009

(Keywords: Cindy Beck, games, tag, Superman, greased lightning, Karlene Browning, world peace, Scouting, humor, Latter-day Saints, LDS, yourLDSNeighborhood.com)


You may recall me saying before that I love the game of tag. When it came to playing it as a kid, my friends thought I was Superman. Yup, able to run faster than a speeding building and jump a single bullet in a bound. Or something like that.

Well, okay, maybe my speed wasn't quite up there with Superman, but I was as fast as greased lightning.

All right, all right, probably not even greased lightning … more like a greased caterpillar. Which explains why I haven’t written up the “Eight Things” that Karlene Browning (InkSplasher) tagged me with on December 5th. As a greased caterpillar, I have a very hard time keeping my feet under me, much less moving forward.

Listed below are “Eight Things,” which I’m sure you’ll find amusing, amazing, and amazonian. Well, not really amazonian. I just used that word because it started with “A” and went well with amusing and amazing.

Eight Things I’m Looking Forward To:

1. A new U.S. presidency.

You’ll notice I didn’t say which president, or in what year. And nope, I’m not going to tell you which candidate I voted for.

Wait, that last sentence is structured incorrectly. A good writer should never end a sentence with a preposition. And while I have no clue what a preposition is, I don’t want to use one of them to end my sentences with.

Back to whom I voted for. I’m not going to tell you because my momma didn’t raise no dummy, and if I tell, someone might use a rock to hit me in the head with.

2. World peace.

Hmm, hasn’t every Miss America since the Stone Age asked for peace? Now that I think about it, that explains why Utah’s Miss Farm Hand never won the crown. The judges thought she asked for whirled peas.

3. An end to hunger.

I’m thinking Utah’s Miss Farm Hand could help by planting her whirled peas all over the earth. She’d be like Johnny Appleseed, who walked around with a pot on his head, planting apple seeds across the land.

I’ve always thought of Johnny Appleseed as a true conservationist, who left a legacy in apple trees for all those who followed. Russ thinks he was a nut, hearing voices that commanded him to wear a pot as a chapeau.

4. Wow, I still have three more things to list?

I don’t think I’m gonna make it.

5. A warm and wonderful spring.

When we were young and dating, my someday-to-be husband, Russ, used to write poetry for me—verse like, “Pumpkin seed better than weed, but prune juice set you free.” I appreciated it. I loved it.

I had no clue what it meant.

Now that I think about it, I’d say he compares to Browning. No, not the poet—the rifle.

One year Russ recited this limerick for me:

Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where the flowers is.

They be not here,
They be not there,
I guess they bees not anywhere.

It sounded just like something he would create, so at the time I assumed the thoughts were his own. Imagine my surprise to discover, many years later, that he was not the original author. Imagine my relief to find that somewhere, some poor woman had a husband just like mine, whose poetry was … well … unique. Only his name was Anonymous instead of Russ.

6. Wow, I still have two more things to list?

I wonder if I’m going to make it.

7. Being released from Scouting.

The bishop asked me to take over as the Bear Cub Scout Leader. Me, a gray-haired, under-tall-rather than-over-weight ol’ lady whose age is pushing … well … let’s just say I ain’t a spring chicken. Tomorrow I’ll run the first meeting with six little boys in attendance. Cute little boys, fun little boys, exuberant little boys.

It's not the little boys that are the problem. It's all that Scouting paperwork.

8. Finishing this blog entry.

I’m looking forward to completing this article, along with finishing the bag of tortilla chips on my desk. Once the chips are gone, I look forward to finishing the Cheetos, Fritos, and Cadbury bar in my pantry. Ooo, and Twinkies. There must be Twinkies in that pantry, somewhere.

As it turns out, there were supposed to be five or six topics of eight things in the game. Stuff like, “Eight things on my wish list, eight TV shows I like to watch, eight things that happened yesterday,” etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. (For those of you who like meaningless statistics, you’ll notice I used eight etceteras.)

It seems I must be just a little long-winded, though, and the first group of, “Eight Things I’m Looking Forward To” took approximately 800 words. But then again, who’s counting?

At some point in the future, I’ll do the others. In the meantime, just remember … pumpkin seed better than weed, and prune juice set you free … for whatever good that does you.

Oh yeah, and it's my hope that until then, we'll have whirled peas.


What's playing in my head: The Johnny Appleseed Song by Dennis Day.

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