On New Year's Day, 2011, my sister passed away. It was a really bad time to me. I think my own mortality passed before my eyes. The next month, I went to my local Ford dealership with $20,000 and ordered a brand new Mustang. I knew exactly what I wanted: GT, 5.0 liter engine with 420 hp, hood and side scoops, 19 in wheels, shaker 1000 sounds system--- basically, the works.

It took three months for that car to come in. Every day I waited by the phone, wishing it to ring.  Then I got the call!  YAY!

Exactly one month later.... hadn't made a monthly payment yet... hadn't gotten the registration in the mail yet..... and...

I was on the way to work and a flash flood picked the car up and carried me down the road. The car finally stopped drifting and just died. First I was shocked, then angry, then just plain overwhelmed. I dropped my cell phone below the seat and couldn't reach it.

The call is voice activated, so I said, "Call GEICO" to get a tow truck. The car responded, "Call Gail? Call Mom? Call Al?"
"NO! GEICO! GEICO!" I shouted as I pounded the dash. 

As the water built up around the car, an officer pulled up and told me to get out. My response? "No. No way! It's brand new. I'm not leaving it."

"Please, ma'am, you need to get out of the car," the officer pleaded.

"I'm fine right where I am, just call me a tow truck, please."

The officer's annoyance exuded from his voice, "You need to get out of the car, you could drown."

"Look, this car was $45,000. I'm not leaving it. If I die, tell my mother my life insurance will pay off the car and for a crane to pick me and the car up and drop us in a hole. No need to embalm me or anything. Just have her bury me in the car." I think he thought I was kidding, but I wasn't.

So, the tow truck comes and takes me back to my dealership which is owned by a family that I knew from school. I tell my story, and my former Geometry classmate starts laughing to the point I wanted to hit him. Then his brother walks up in horror, watching my poor car being towed in on the flatbed. Classmate tells his brother, while holding his belly and stomping on the floor laughing, "You're not going to believe this..."

I call GEICO from the dealership... go through a whole list of questions... then get this question, "What road were you on at the time, ma'am?"

"Creek Road."

The agent laughed, "Seriously? Your new car got flooded on Creek Road?"  Another freaking wise guy!  It took two weeks for my new engine to come in... at the cost of $12,000 by GEICO. The old engine only had 500 miles on it :(

I was already experienced in losing Mustang GT's though. A real pro. I had a beautiful red Mustang GT-- it was 13 years old, fully customized and only had 68,000 miles on it. On Easter Sunday, while the kids were running over fields and hunting for eggs.. I heard CRASH!

I lay on my mother's apartment floor watching a movie, and after a few minutes I got up and said, "I better take a look, with my luck that was my car."  I wasn't really expecting it to be my car... but when I saw that the parked car was now on the grass with it's quarter panel thrust into the side of a tree... after having moved a concrete parking bumper four feet away...well.. I just screamed!

There were no other cars around--- just my car in the middle of a field assaulting a tree. I call 911 and walk out without my shoes, and honestly without even a bra cause I was comfy indoors, and went searching for the culprit.

"West Deptford Police, How can I help you?"

"Some idiot just totaled my Mustang GT. I need a responder, please." The tons of questions came flying out of his mouth as the idiot in question came walking from two buildings over. 

"Hey.. was that your car that jumped out in front of me?"  He staggered toward me. It was obvious he was drunk or on drugs or something. Which made me even more angry.

"Officer, this @#$#@# is messed up on something and saying my car hit him. I wasn't even in it," I declared.

The officer then asked me to describe him.... six foot two..250 pounds... and oh yeah.. HIGH on freaking drugs!!! How's that for a description???  Then I hear, "Ma'am, is he being belligerent? Are you in fear?"

Now I'm mad and screaming, "Fear? Yeah, I'm in fear of hurting him.. did you NOT hear me tell you the part where he totaled my Mustang GT?????"  A second later five cop cars swarmed around us in a star pattern like you see in a movie.

GEICO paid the claim right away then fought with that guy's insurance for a year to get refunded. The adjuster wrote on my paperwork, "My condolences on the loss of your vehicle. I searched from Boston to South Carolina and found nothing comparable. It was THAT unique and irreplaceable."  Six months later the idiot finally went to court, got his DUI dropped and only lost his license for a month. Guess what insurance company then covered him when his policy was dropped? GEICO!!!! 

These stories are funny now, but at the time I was devastated and angry. 

I hope you enjoyed today's Short & Silly and ask you to please share my blog with your friends and feel free to comment below.

All you mothers with sons will relate to this post.

As I have said before, I was one of five siblings growing up in a 2 1/2 bedroom home with a bathroom the size of a closet. Seriously, two people could not stand shoulder to shoulder. So just imagine what it was like for three teenage girls to squeeze into that small space, trying to curl their hair and do their make-up on "date night". Elbows would jab and claws would come out during a bunch of yelling.

Enter my brother who had been potty trained for quite some time, yet was just getting accustomed to using the "big people's potty". I guess he was still learning the difference between #1 and #2 when he sat down on the toilet but shot a stream of urine like a fountain all over the girls. The three of them screamed and tried to escape, but got wedged in the room and took a while to get out. "Mom, why did you have to have a boy?" they shouted. After that incident a huge mirror was put up in our dining room with extension cords to run to the hair dryers and curling irons.

A few years later, when my mom wanted to entertain us, she would give us a bowl and a spoon and say, "Go dig in the dirt." Even though video games were becoming popular, the Atari 2600 was monopolized by the older girls. What Mom should have said was, "Play in the dirt and keep it outside," but.... she didn't. 

So one day my brother proudly brought the bowl filled with dirt into the living room and shouted, "Look! I got worms!" By this stage in our development, our mom made us count everything... cars driving by, telephone poles, coins on the tables. I'm not sure to this day if it was supposed to be a learning experience or something to keep us entertained and prevent fighting. Either way, her technique backfired on her on this particular day.

She asked, "How many worms did you catch?"
He responded, "I don't know. Help me count them." Then he dumped the bowl onto the floor. Now some moms would have screamed and flipped out. By this time, Mom had 5 kids and was already crazy-- and ready for everything. She pulled out the Kirby vacuum and said, "Let's count. One," sucked it up. "Two," sucked one up. "Three," sucked it up. You get the picture.

This was not the last time my brother brought the area's wildlife into our home, however. We lived on a creek with woods and streams all around. The kids in the neighborhood would often catch frogs, salamanders, and fish. One day my mom told my brother to come inside and play, so he carried in his new "froggy friends" inside as well.  Instead of throwing the frogs out of the house, my mother told him to play with them in the bathtub. Gross, I know. But she intended to bleach it later.  The boy with the frogs was happy and the girls were playing their stereo and talking on the phone. Peace roamed throughout the home. Not quiet, mind you, but no fighting which was as much peace as you get with 5 kids and a crazy dog.

About a week later, my sister was taking a shower and started screaming at the top of her lungs. My mother instinctively jumped in the shower to protect her from the scolding hot water and pushed her toward the back of the shower. Then mom realized, "What is wrong with you? This water isn't even hot?" (Whatever made her think there would be hot water is beyond me. It took me 14 years to be able to get luke-warm water with all those people in that house).

My sister was screaming and crying, "There's something in here! There's something in here!"

Mom looked around and jumping up from the soapy water, "Ribbit, ribbit," was one of the frogs. So there was of course more screaming throughout the house about having one boy in a house full of girls. No one stopped to think that the poor frog's eyes might be stinging from the soapy water!

Flash forward a little more to my 9th birthday party. A pipe broke under the tub and a plumber came out to inspect. While he was under there, he held up a frog with it's hands and legs stretched out in all directions. "Ma'am, I found one of your kids' toys under here."

"Oh, no. That's not a toy. I think that is a real frog that got petrified. Hmm, never saw anything like that before."

Gee, it's no wonder what terrified that frog so much into being literally scared to death. A house full of my family would do that to anything!

Hope you enjoyed today's Short & Silly - If you like them, please feel free to comment below about your own "short & silly" tales. And consider sharing my link with your friends. Have a great day!

Being that I love history, I always had a fascination with tracing my family roots. Ancestry.com is an amazing tool to help you do this--- But be careful, you might not always like what you find. 

I had friends who found interesting things, relatives who invented things or did some sort of community service. Relatives who were firemen or heroes. I hoped I would find something of that nature. I have three branches of my family: Italian, German, and Irish so I thought the information would be varied.

Well... I started with the Italians. I knew the names, so looked up the Census and found the ship's passenger lists from Italy to America. Then I noticed "832 Christian Street" as the given US address. Hmm... there were more passengers at that address... other relatives?  It gave me leads. After hunting for awhile, I realized that address was "Banco D'Italia" and there was a bank employee allowing immigrants to use the bank address in exchange for money. hmmmm.. Those Italians did not want to be found, just like Michael Corleone from The Godfather. So my search ended in 1910.

Then I jumped to the Irish side. I knew a few more names than I did with the Italians. I traced them back to Ireland in 1820. There were dozens of children who did not survive to adulthood which is sad. A WWI veteran is buried in the national veteran cemetery in Philadelphia--that I could be proud of. And of course the stereotypical Irish drunk. Yep, in a newspaper article I found a relative of mine was given a citation for drunk driving of a horse carriage in 1882. (He would have definitely lost the competition against my German grandmother! See post: My Guzzling Granny for that explanation).

The Irish side inspired me to write Tower of Tears: The McClusky Series. Although the murder and blackmail are works of fiction, the idea of a woman named Jane in 1820 coming to the US from Ireland alone intrigued me. The fear and loneliness, the discrimination she must have faced. Great premise for a story. Hence, a family saga with murder, betrayal, blackmail and mystery was born!

So the Italians might have been criminals who didn't want to be found. The Irish were drunks who were easily found... what about the Germans?

I typed in my very unusual German surname and out popped an FBI file! What???? Now this is getting interesting! What did he do?

Turns out that during WWI, my great uncle who immigrated and became a US citizen had an extremely passionate argument in a bar which lead to a fight. The two men argued over politics (guess i know where I get my fiery personality from) and my uncle said, "This country is going to hell in a hand basket. The way things are going, Germany is going to win this war cause the only reason people become citizens is to get work."

That statement launched a decades long investigation into the family for... wait for it..."Violation of the Espionage Act". No lie. It turned out that this statement made in 1918 caused government agents to follow my family around in 1942 during WWII. Cause, you know, there was a war on and they had nothing better to do. Considering I had two separate run ins with US Secret Service in my lifetime, I wasn't surprised. It must run in the genes.

Germans are incredible record keepers. I was able to trace my family lines all the way back to 1660. The worst part? Not that they were accused of being spies.. but that the German side were full of postal workers dating back to 1822. My extended living family is full of postal workers: Grandfather, mother, brother, 2 uncles and me. When I told my brother of my findings, his reply was "Damn! 200 years and we haven't progressed at all! We're still freaking mailmen!"

The German side did inspire me to write Newborn Nazi, which was based on my grandfather's siblings. The youngest brother, Edmund, was forced into the Hitler Youth and his sister, Hedwig, was so appalled that she joined the underground to save lives. In real life, Edmund discovered his sister's activities and was faced with the conflict of protecting her or turning her in--essentially killing her. I took the idea of the "espionage" and ran with it to produce a suspense thriller whose last chapter is almost completely true.

So before you go searching for your family... ask yourself.. can you handle what you find?

I found criminals, drunks, and Nazis...... but also a hero who sacrificed all to save others and many other who gave up their lives to find a better life in America. A life they gave to me.

I have a nephew who loves reading books as much as I do. My brother and I started him off at a very young age. At 2 years old, if he wanted to play a video game, he had to read a question then type the answer. Each time the computer started, a new question was asked, so there was no memorization to help him cheat 

Back in the 90s, there was a "Rag Mag" called the Weekly World News, the kind you find in the grocery store lines that say "Adam and Eve Were Aliens" and "Bigfoot is Married to Joan Rivers". My nephew loved these, and for $1.65 it was a great way to not only keep him quiet, but to keep him reading. The problem lay when he took them to school to educate his 6 year old friends that "Bat Boy" was a mutation of a boy and bat and lived in a cave.  The teacher did not like that one too much... and I got a talking to from my sister.

One of my fondest memories was when a Stephen King book came out around Christmas. My nephew was about 9 or 10, and he wanted the book so badly. At the time, King had a monthly book club--- commit to buying x number of books and get one free. I fell for it and got the kid a bunch of books for Christmas. 

The problem?  My sister knew it, the kid didn't. The two walked through Kmart and he asked for the book. My sister said no.

"But... pllllleeeaassse Mom! I really want it, it is so important!"
His mother replied, "No, it's almost Christmas. Stop acting up and let's go."
He responded, "But look, it's on sale for 30% off, it won't be on sale again..... pllllleeeasseee  I have nothing at home to read." 
This only angered her. Not only did this kid have a library that rivaled my own, but he had custom built wooden book cases to fit them, PLUS a shelf that wrapped around his bedroom ceiling. But ya know, he had NOTHING to read.

Annoyed, my sister told him to put the book back and walked away. A stranger approached her, "Lady, my kid wants a $600 Wii video console and your kid wants a $10 book. Just buy him the book lady!"  Talk about embarrassing.


When the same nephew was 13 years old, I asked what he wanted for Christmas and he replied, "To see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway". (Who's kid is this?????)

So my brother and I bought the tickets and we took a Greyhound for a day trip to NYC. After the show, we stopped by a souvenir shop--- Guess  what the kid wanted??? 

You guessed it! The freaking BOOK of Phantom of the Opera.

I hope you enjoyed this post of Short & Silly!  Be sure to stop in at my store and click on a book title. A FREE sample chapter is listed for each book.

On my old blog I posted about my wild grandmother who took me to a strip club for my 18th birthday. This same woman lived to be 93 years old, drank and smoked and was funny as hell.

It was a family joke that "Mom-Mom" would throw a party if someone sneezed. A joke, but true. On a Tuesday night, for no other reason than it was Tuesday, she would have dozens of people over in her finished basement--complete with wet bar. She always started the night with a 16 oz glass of half water and half whiskey. With each drink she would ask for "a little less water."  So by the third glass, the old lady was drinking straight whiskey. The crazy thing was that she never got drunk.

By our teen years, my brother and I realized we could profit from Mom-Mom's drinking. Yep, that is what I said. We actually bet people our little old granny could out drink them. $500 was to go the man or woman who could out drink Granny. We'd bring our biggest, most rugged men friends and neighbors to our parties. Without letting Mom-Mom know, we would pour the men a drink at the same time we poured Mom-Mom her requested drink. By the end of the night, she would get up and walk out --- and often drive home--- and they would be puking under the table.

I honestly have no idea how much money we made, but I can tell you I had some really nice jewelry during my early 20s lol.  The only time I ever remember her being tipsy was a comedy session in itself. She had to be about 85 years old. Her husband of 38 years (he was her THIRD husband!)  was 10 years younger than her. This one night, Mom-Mom rubbed up against him and said in front of us all, "Jim, let's go home and make some babies."

"Marie, please."

"Jimmmmm..... I'll put on the red mesh nightie you like so much.. with my red puff ball mules. What do you say?"

"Come on, Marie. It's time to go home."

She turned to everyone and yelled, "We're making some babies tonight!" Then staggered out the door. Even then, she was not fall down drunk. She was completely aware of her surroundings. It was amazing. At her 80th birthday party, she and her friend named Alice danced most of the night. Alice was over 90, and these old ladies knew how to laugh and have a good time.  I remember someone asking them how they could have so much energy and someone else said, "Cause if you slice their wrist, Seagram's VO will shoot out. They aren't human anymore."

When her third husband died, (yeah, the guy 10 years younger than her), she cried about how much she missed my biological grandfather-- who died 14 years before I was born. She went on and on about how great a lover he was, and how much she missed him. I don't know about you.... but imagine my grandmother have sex with a live guy was bad enough.... but now she was bringing decades old corpses into the picture!

To this day, I'm not sure if she out drank the bio grand dad, or if she killed him with her bedroom olympics in an attempt to "make babies."  What I do know is that the woman was very attached to her whiskey... and very healthy despite the drinking.

She'd moved into an assisted living complex that was where? You guessed it, right next to a liquor store. She could no longer drive a car, but was quite able to put her walker on wheel across the complex and through a huge parking lot to get to the liquor store. I went to visit once and she said, "I stopped by the store earlier to get you soda. I needed some VO also... but I had to put the potato chips back cause it is a far walk and the bags were just too heavy."

Uh.. the 5 oz bag of chips was too heavy, but the gallon of whiskey was no problem?

She passed away a few years ago, but her fun memories are with me always.

My sister, Lee, was an incredible person. Yet, from a young age she did whatever she wanted and feared no one. Her anthem was Alice Cooper's "School's Out'. The record player--- yes, a phonograph that most of you never even seen--- blasted any sort of anti-authority music.  My poor mother.  Lee's hatred for school was second only to her ingenuity of getting out of it. 


This was a typical school day involving Lee:


Mom: "Everybody ready? Grab your lunches, let's go!"
Lee: "No, I can't find my left shoe."
Mom: "Then wear a different pair."
Lee: "I don't have both shoes of ANY pair."
Mom: "Then wear one white shoe and one black shoe. We don't have time for this."
Lee: "No Mom, you don't understand. ALL of my left shoes are missing. I can't go to school cause I can't find a complete pair of shoes."
Mom: "Then where one of your sisters' pair."
Lee: "I can't. I wear a 5 1/2 and they wear 8s and 10s."
Mom: "I give up."
Lee: "YES! I'm going back to bed."


I remember her senior year better than she did. She took some sort of secretarial type of class. At the beginning of the year she was given a packet to complete by the end of the year. That packet was to be her 4th marking period grade. 

Typing, Steno, Shorthand, Tables, Spreadsheets... these are all life skills that could have been real assets. Three days before the end of the school year:

Lee: "Mom, would you be mad if I don't graduate?"
Mom: "And you bring this up now, WHY????"
Lee: "My teacher in office class said if I don't turn in my assignment in 3 days, I won't graduate."
Mom: "Then turn in the assignment."
Lee; "It's a lot to do."  She pulls out a 3 inch thick packet.
Mom: "When the hell were you given this assignment?"
Lee: "September."
Mom: "It's freaking JUNE!"
Lee: "Yeah, I know. And if it isn't done in three days, I have to take it again in September."
Mom: "Oh my god! I can't believe I survived you in high school the first time. No way can I take another year of this." She grabbed the packet, pulled out her electric typewriter and pounded away at the keys.

Three days later:

Mom: "Did you turn that in?"
Lee: "Yeah! I can graduate!"
Mom: "What did your teacher say?"
Lee: "She said I passed."  She held up the packet that had a note, "Your mother gets an A-- you get a D. Happy Graduation"

To this day, my mother believes the teacher took pity on her...not on Lee, but on my mother.

Well, maybe not a puppy.. but she was like my kid. A 100 pound kid that did not understand her tail was like a whip that would knock everything off the tables, not to mention whack your legs with a sting.

Some of my greatest memories are about this dog... 14 years after her death, I'm sitting here writing this--so there's your proof. So let's get started:

My husband was not exactly the jump out of bed type of person. He would allow the alarm clock to sound, then hit snooze about six times before climbing out of bed. He never even rolled over, his arm would just fly across the air and hit the top of the clock. 

One day Rainy must have gotten annoyed with him, as was I. After the third or fourth time, the alarm blared across the room, but hubby didn't move. I nudged him, "Shut it off, come on.. Get up!"  He didn't move fast enough. Rainy took her paw and went WHACK! Flying through the air was the lamp, the clock and a water filled vase of flowers.

THAT got my husband jumping out of bed, screaming and yelling! "Look what your stupid dog did! I can't believe you are laughing!"

"What? It's cute! Not only did she learn something new, but she got you up!"

He wasn't happy. He often told me he was going to get rid of her. I would have liked to seem him try. I had her 5 years longer than I had him :)

I had a habit of putting a bagel in the toaster oven, then jumping in the shower. By the time I got out, my bagel would be done. One day I came out and my bagel was gone. 

"That pain in the neck hubby of mine must be playing tricks on me." I was alone, but I thought maybe my husband returned home after forgetting something on his way to work. A plausible thought. The next day, I did the same thing. I come out from the shower..... and...

Bagel gone. Hmmmm.... now I'm thinking my husband and brother are involved in some weird conspiracy to drive me crazy. AH! I got it. I'll set up a video camera and catch the culprits.  Boy was I shocked.  There was Rainy on my video, paws on the counter top, then with one paw, she pulled the glass door of the toaster oven down until it tilted forward. The bagels slid right onto the floor, and the spring action of the door allowed the door to shut once the oven was upright again. There was my baby, scarfing down my bagels.

I hope you enjoyed today's post of "Short & Silly"  Be sure to check out my books on my STORE tab. Each book's first chapter is listed under the product as a sample.

My sister, Lee, was completely different from the rest of the family. She was wild yet compassionate, spontaneous yet strong, and innocent in some ways yet vicious in others.

One day she came to me begging me to take her to Woodstock. "Please, please please. I have no one to go with me. Wayne can't go and I never went that far away with anyone but him. It is going to be great... did you see the lineup of bands?"

"No. Not after what happened at the last concert we went to," I replied.

This sweet, innocent look washed over her face. "What do you mean? Poison and Warrant were incredible!"

Annoyance and anger now flooded me. "THEY were good, you were a nut! Don't you remember? You got high with the guys seated behind us, then jumped the railing on the second level and proceeded to shimmy down the rafters?"  She was silent as I continued my rant, "I had to grab you by the waistband and pull you back over the railing. You kicked and screamed while some stranger held onto me! You could have been killed.  All you kept screaming was 'I want to meet Brett!'"

Something clicked in her head, "Ohhhhh, now I remember. Wow.. that concert was better than I thought."  I just shook my head. "Come on, please... you are the best sister in the world," she begged.

"Lee, I don't care about who is playing, I can watch them on television. I am not peeing in a field for three days with a bunch of crazy, drunken junkies dancing around and puking on me. It's going to be 95 degrees with 100% humidity, and they are probably going to charge $10 for a freaking bottle of water."

Stomping her foot, Lee responded, "But this is a once in a lifetime experience! It will never happen again!"


I had to keep reminding myself that this woman was 11 years older than me. "Yeah, that is what the baby boomers said in the 60's, but they are still alive. It will happen again in our lifetime, and even then, I will not be the one taking you."


She left.  A few hours later she called me, "Hi. Can I ask you a question?"


"No, I will never change my mind."


She got quiet, then said, "No, not that. I want to know something. Is it legal for work to fire me then make me sign a contract that I will never again work for another store in their chain for the rest of my life? Can they do that?"


My hand slid to my forehead in disbelief. Only my sister could get banned from employment forever. "Lee, I honestly do not know if it is legal. But, in my honest opinion, I don't think you should sign it. Just walk out, then apply again next year. The best way to get back at them is to make them suffer through supervising you all over again."


Her response, "Yeah! Cool.. that is what I thought!" 

My "Short & Silly" stories from my old blog were always successful posts, so I decided to post a Short & Silly TRUE story every Saturday. Some of these stories may be funny now, but at the time, they were quite serious.  Today's story is .....

My mother has NEVER had a sense of direction--NEVER.  I knew this at a very early age.
Thank God that when she was in the US Air Force she was not some navigational crewmen or something like that. The USAF fleet would still be lost over the Bermuda Triangle or something.

When I was about six years old, my mother would take the family shopping, and of course, my brother and I would want to go play the new home game systems--- Atari 2600 and Intellivision.  Consoles would be set up in the toy departments of stores across America, and parents would drop off their kids to be entertained while the parent shopped. The inevitable time came when the shopping would be done and the kid would be dragged away--- kicking and screaming, "But WHY can't i have it? I want that game! Please?"

Such was the ritual that my mother decided to break. Instead of her coming to the toy department, she told my brother and I to meet her in a particular part of the store at a particular time. When my mother did not arrive, my brother and I went to the Customer Service desk at the front of the store and said, "Could you please page my mom. She is lost."

The lady at the counter said, "Don't worry.. you are not lost. Everything will be alright." Apparently she did not comprehend the situation.

I repeated, "I'm not lost. My mother is lost. I know where I am."

The woman then proceeded to page, "Would the lost mother of Rhoda D'Ettore please come to Customer Service." 

After a few minutes, my mother arrived, pushing a full shopping cart, "I'm sorry I took so long. I could not find Customer Service."

I was six years old, looked at the woman at the desk and said, "See... she gets lost even at the front door of the store."

A few years later, Mom decided to take us to Dutch Wonderland, an amusement park in Pennsylvania--- that part is important. Pennsylvania.  The park is about 90 minutes Northwest of our home. After driving for a couple hours, my  mother decided to send me into McDonalds with a pen and paper and ask for directions. I guess that even at 8 years old, I could understand the directions better than she could.

I enter the establishment, and the sweet lady at the counter said, "Honey, you are in Baltimore, Maryland." It turned out that my mother got lost in four states that day... New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.  She turned us around and started over from the start. By the time we reached the park, we were only able to get on two rides before the place closed.

These events in no way stopped her from trying to get us to various tourist spots. On our way to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, my mother landed us at the gate of a "secret military facility". A soldier approached, M16 in hand, "Turn your vehicle around and remove yourself from this property immediately."

My mother did not understand this man's determination to eject us from the premises. "But, sir, we are looking for Busch Gardens. I have no idea where I am. Can't you help me?"

Agitated, the solder repeated the order, "Ma'am, you are to remove yourself from this installation immediately. This is a Top Secret military installation, trespassers will be shot."

At this point, you would think a 48 year old woman in a station wagon with 4 kids would just turn around. Not my mother, "I was USAF and a GS-11 with top secret clearance. My number was AA-02678-9 (I made up the number, but you get the point). Now, please give me directions back to the road."

I don't think she realized he didn't care what clearance she had 15 years prior... all he wanted was for her to take her car, bags, brats and leave.  His response, "If I give you directions back to the road, then you will know how to trace back to this facility. Therefore, I cannot."

We kids started shouting out the window, "Please... tell us... trust us.. she will NEVER find her way back here. I'm shocked I'm not speaking Mexican by now!"

My mom always tried though. And we did make it back to New Jersey--- eventually. 

Stay tuned for next week's adventure of "Short & Silly Saturday"

Saturday's post of Short & Silly was so popular I decided to try to write one every day.  Growing up in a family with 5 kids certain has provided me with enough material to do so! :)

My father died, leaving my mother with 5 kids-- ages 2, 3, 14, 16, 17. As if that was not bad enough, our house was incredibly tiny... a 2.5 bedroom house with a bathroom the size of a closet. Who the hell ever heard of a "half of a bedroom"?  This basically forced us to be on top of each other at all times. We might as well have just written "D'Ettore Asylum" on the front door and petitioned for grants from the state. Things were THAT crazy sometimes.

Occasionally my mother would have the delusion that taking our tribe in public was a good idea... uh.. I'm still think she must have been on drugs.  One day she took us to "Rustler's Steak House", a cafeteria style steakhouse that cooked your steak to order right in front of you. Even at 5 years old, I wanted well done. There was no way I wanted to be hacking into something that was bloody and about to run away.  The trips there always included packing some doggie bags to take home.

The adventure did not end in the restaurant. Any parent knows that kids love the front seat of the car.... so all five kids would run from the door of the store/restaurant to across the parking lot and screaming, laying claims to the front seat. This particular night I remember my brother and I trying to push the teenagers and getting nowhere. My sister, Lee, grabbed Gail's hand, trying to remove it from the handle.

"I want the front seat! It's not fair! You always get the front!"

"Shut up! You're too little!"

"You shut up, you had the seat last time!"

All the kids were pushing and pulling so much that no one could open the door. My mother got frustrated and placed the doggie bags on the roof of the car, yelled for us to "act normal"... (uh.. lady.. where have you been my whole life? This IS normal). Finally my mother selected one kid to sit in the front seat, then opened the door and allowed us all to climb in. 


As soon as the car started, everyone started yelling about which radio station to put on. Kids' arms darted from the back seat to the front as cries of joy or disappointment rang out at the selection. At a stop light, my teen sisters noticed a car full of boys in the next lane. Each of the three girls pushed and argued over which of them the boys were admiring. They blew kisses and winked at the boys for a mile or so. Then my mother hit the brakes to stop at the next light.


All three sisters jumped to the floor of the car as the doggie bags from the roof slid down, drizzling gravy all down the windshield. The boys in the next car were laughing and pointing. They honked their horn and blew kisses back before they took off.


Of course, all parents have done something like this. My mother was always leaving her purse or coffee cup on the roof of the car. To this day, I have no idea have none of us wound up falling off that roof... because, as you know from Saturday's post... my mother would not have been able to find her way back to the original spot to find us.

If you like my humor, be sure to check out my book "Goin' Postal & The Creek".