Farmville

I really like farming on farmville, but I would like to point out to the developers that when I am maniaclly fencing, that is not the time to send me a message to ask if I wouldn't like to post something on my wall about having become a Jolly Rancher.

At that point anything I would write on my wall would not be suitable to be read by anyone with a delicacy that causes them to have sensitivity to the word f**k. Just so they know. I might also have a few things to say about their ancestry, their likely IQ and what anatomically impossible things I would like the to do so I can fence.

What idiot interrupts a farmer when he's fencing?

Farming on farmville is a lot easier than I recall it being in actual life. For one thing you only have to milk the cows every three days or so. That beats that twice a day thing I remember in real life.

I would like to point out that my raspberry crop should not ripen in only two hours. If you plant raspberrys invariably you get company and by the time you get back to them you get that snotty message about how they have withered and you just know the farming association won't be handing you any Jolly Rancher awards anytime soon.

It is only safe to plant raspberries at two AM when you can't sleep and the pain in your bad hip pretty much guarantees you're going to be up two more hours. And of course you're going to spend that time on facebook because where else would you be?

I don't know if you've ever tried to read when your hip is acting up, but don't waste your time. Also, if you are me you are trying not to smoke and you ran out of tootsie pops two hours ago and even though Wal-mart is open 24 hours can you really justify driving 14 miles with a bad hip just to get more tootsie pops?

Not if you don't want your husband to give you that speech about the price of gas and the fact that the quick stop here in town will open at six. Screw him and his gas, as I recall he's not the one quitting smoking although I distinctly remember we had an agreement that we would both quit smoking on April 15 and only one of us did.

It's true I started again in July but at least I keep at it. Not like some people who have a fit of apoplexy over spending three dollars for a gallon of gas but have no problem at all paying eight dollars for a pack of cigarettes.

I get a little testy when I first quit smoking, bear with me, I'll get over it as soon as the urge passes. Probably. If not you can write to me in prison right after I murder someone. Or just attack somebody with a brick which is that other thing I keep wanting to do a lot of.

So, anyway, farming. There I was harvesting the grapefruit trees and de-feathering the ducks (no, I didn't make that up, I didn't invent the game) collecting eggs from the hens and stealing the truffles from the pigs when, out of nowhere, it occurred to me that the farm wasn't very neat.

So I dug up all the crops and started building fences and little plots of fields,. Which, incidentally is exactly what I would do in real life, which is why I don't farm anymore.

Once, when I was young and both my children were under four I was in my farmhouse washing clothes with a wringer washer in July--which is why I was wearing my bikini--and some Jehovah's witnesses apparently took a flyer on our dead-end, quarter mile dirt driveway and decided to take a shot at my soul again.

As it happened I didn't hear them knock, on account of the wringer had a safety feature that caused it to snap apart with a noise like gunfire if you fed it anything thicker than a dishtowel, so I was wearing my earplugs.

I quite enjoyed washing clothes with my wringer washer, so I was also singing rather loudly (I think it might have been, When the red, red, robin goes bob, bob, bobbin' along) as I sailed off to the clothes line with a basket of wet clothes, and ran smack into the Christers right outside the door.

Of all of us, I would have to say they were more surprised but I was more determined and since I never did anything half hearted, I ran over some little old lady as I made my way deliberately to the clothesline. The gentleman with her took exception to me stomping over his companion in my bikini and my tennis shoes but i wasn't hearing him because of the earplugs.

Which may account for the fact that I threw the laundry in the air and tried to help her up. Jacob had taken that moment to remove his clothing and sit naked on the kitchen table with his feet in the butter that he was attempting to feed to the cat, who didn't care for any, and that was the exact moment that Scott--my second husband the musician who worked late and didn't like to be disturbed before afternoon--came downstairs to find who had awakened him and kill them.

So there I was in my bikini and earplugs stepping over a little woman who was on the ground while her husband yelled while I attempted to get to the naked toddler on the table and rescue the cat. Which was when I noticed that Lacey had decided to sample the remains of Scott's drink on the end table (which fortunately was just a sip, but still not what you want to put in the cup of a small child).

I don't believe anyone tried to save me for awhile after that, though I do think at some point Scott and the Witnesses had a brief discussion about the Pope which ended badly.

I used to feel kind of bad about that until last week when the Winresses showed up to discuss the state of mother's soul on her fron porch and made the grave and ireversable error of suggesting to her that pastors should not pray for soldiers as they were all going to hell anyway because something to do with war.

Mother is nicer than I am and also a better Christian so the fellow is still breathing ( I would have knocked him in the head with a few of those tomatos my dad grows so well and driven him into the street in front of a passing car, and then if he had wanted to continue discussing his views on war and how it relates to the souls of those people serving in Iraq I would have been quite willing).

She just ended her conversation and graciously went back into her house. Mother is nice like that. Since I had my brain frozen for that fifteen minutes I was dead I have a lot less self control myself, I find.

Anyway, Jesus fortunately looks out for my soul--which is good since I obviously shouldn't be trusted with it--and I'm hopeful he's looking out for both the Witnesses and the soldiers, as well.

Mother, now, I'm pretty sure is a Saint, so I don't have to worry too much about hers, which gives me more time to farm.