questions

I've been collecting questions in my brain that people have been asking me lately. I figured it would turn into a blog post sooner or later.

• During the middle of a spelling test today, cologne-wearing boy (remember him?) asks, "Mrs. B., can I ask you a private question?" I say, "I don't know. Can you?" Then I raise my eyebrows with that teacher look that says you should've used may instead of can. The conversation continues, "And do you mean 'private' as in you and I go out into the hall to talk, private?" He says, "Yes." I say, "Sure, A., whatever floats your boat." The other kids laughed because they apparently have never heard the expression whatever floats your boat. Funny thing is, he never did ask me any private questions.


• At the checkout line at Walmart last weekend, the cashier asks, "Do you have your hair streaked or is it natural?" I've never heard of having one's hair streaked before, but I politely answered, "I have my hair highlighted with two different colors." She says, "Wow! It looks so natural!" Then why in the world did she ask me if I had it streaked? By the way, I'm getting my hair restreaked this afternoon because I was thinking all that root growth doesn't really look so natural after all.


• At my front door at 7:15 last Friday morning my neighbor lady (whom I had not met up to this point) rings the doorbell. I don't know about all of you, but it's a weird thing to hear the doorbell ring so early in the morning. "Hi! I was wondering, are you getting rid of that desk?" Well, um, since we normally do not leave a desk with matching hutch sitting out overnight by the side of the road for fun, why yes, we are getting rid of it. I didn't say that out loud, but the thought went through my head. Turns out, she wanted it. In fact, she'd been eyeballing it all night long. She mentioned that she was the one that was over the night before, but I had gone to bed early with a migraine and never heard the doorbell. She even waited around for the garbage company so they would know not to bill us, saving us about $16 in collection fees. Last I saw, she was painting it sage green. Then Phil tells me that she came over to get some cardboard to make signs for a garage sale. Now we're wondering if she's going to try to sell it on Saturday?


• This isn't a question I was asked, but one I asked my niece. I decided that the only way I could get my sister to quit bugging me to make her a tag book was to actually make her a tag book. So I had one I whipped up from a while ago that was waiting to be finished. I printed off a list of questions I found online to ask little kids for Mother's Day. So I call to talk to my six year old niece Hannah, and the whole family just happens to be at the A & W Rootbeer Stand in good old Ashland, Ohio. (They seriously have THE BEST hotdogs and homemade rootbeer. I'm so going there at the end of June.) Anyway, she's in the back of the van chowing down on a hotdog and I get to the question, "Where's your mom's favorite place to go?" Without any hesitation whatsoever, she says, "Walmart." Now if you know my sister at all, you know that she spends half her life in Walmart. My dad gives her such a hard time about it. Every time I call her she's shopping at Walmart. Hysterical things happen to both of us when we're shopping at Walmart. I just found it extremely funny that Hannah knew the answer to that so well.


• Finally, I was talking to my mom the other day and my nephew Darick was over visiting. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he's going to be in fifth grade next year. I said, "Does he know I'm coming home in June?" So she asked him, and he says, "For good?" That immediately made my entire day, knowing that deep down inside, my nephew really wants me to move back home.