Raising Kane (and a late Resolution)

Guess what. (I never understood why people felt inclined to put a question mark after writing "guess what" because it's not a freaking question. It's a command. You don't even say it with an upward inflection. So why do people put the question mark after it? <--THAT is a question.)

I found Padawan's headphones. I stress that I found the headphones, and not Padawan.

Where did I find them?

In the dryer. The dryer.

The question to ask here is this: how did they get in there?

I had washed a load of jeans. My jeans and Padawan's jeans. And I always check the pockets because Padawan has a bad habit of leaving things in the pockets. I also check my pockets, though why I bother when, being female jeans, the pockets are not big enough to hold anything, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know why people put pockets on girl jeans to begin with since they serve no purpose. I guess just to make them look cute? But half of my jeans only have front pockets anyway. Back pockets make my legs look shorter.

I checked to make sure the dryer was empty before putting the wet jeans in there. Thanks to something Candice told me a few months ago when Choo Choo had somehow gotten under the sheet while I was making the bed, I am no paranoid that she will climb up in the dryer. It was empty.

Anyway, I checked the pockets before the jeans went into the washer. I switched them from the washer to the dryer one pair at a time so I could make sure none of the legs were rolled up inside of each other (because that makes it take longer to dry and the cuffs also come out wrinkled if you do not check) so I know the headphones did not come out of the washer.

When I took the clothes out of the dryer at the end of the drying cycle, the red and white headphones were in there. And they still worked, which clearly indicated that they did not go through the washer because, as Padawan learned on the one occasion he decided to wash jeans and didn't check his pockets first, washers utterly destroy headphones.

I suspect Kane (who George suggested stole the headphones in the first place) had something to do with it. He's becoming a ghostly pain in my ass, always causing trouble somewhere when he could be a helpful, friendly ghost like Casper and just do nice things. Instead he taunts my dog into barking at his invisible self, he moves my trashcan into the middle of the floor, and he turns on lights when I'm perfectly happy to be in the dark. 

But Doug and Bryan will probably say that an alternate reality in which I don't ever check the pockets melded with my reality and that's how the headphones wound up in the dryer when they hadn't been there before. That's not time travel, by the way. That's just alternate realities that are formed when we make different decisions. But I'm not the kind of person to wonder "what if" after making a decision. 

Either way, I'm about to raise some cane (isn't that the saying?) with Kane about his trouble making scheme. I don't know how I'm going to manage to inconvenience a ghost/alien/other worldly being, but I'm going to make a really good attempt at it. After all, I did get really good at irritating the living hell out of Jerkface way back when I lived in Hell Frozen Over.  I kind of miss irritating the hell out of someone. (I am NOT saying that I miss Jerkface. God, NO. My stress level is way down since we left.)

On a happier note, I've now managed to ensnare sixteen people with this blog. Sixteen readers. (That's sixteen more people than I ever thought would read my blog when I first started it, just so you know. It's a nice compliment to me. And I thank you.)

And taking it back to a sadder note, my Uncle G called me at 12:30 this morning when I was in the middle of dreaming about a huge chocolate milkshake that I couldn't lift off of the counter to drink/eat. Seeing as he so very rarely calls and it was 12:30, I thought it must be really important so I answered. (Of course, I thought this was all a dream I had when I woke up this morning but no, there was his name in my calls this morning. So it happened.)

Anyway, he had just gotten off the phone with Uncle C, who is taking Twiggy's death very hard. (I feel like I should call Aunt C to let her know that he passed away. He was her dog, too, but I don't want Uncle C to think that I'm on her side in this whole divorce disaster.) I guess talking to his brother made him want to make tell everyone he loved them. He said, "I just wanted to tell you that I love you, and I miss you."

And of course I started crying because Uncle G took me in my senior year of high school, and gave me a home and everything I needed and everything I wanted. (My mother took the Twinkies back to Jacksonville because she missed her friends, and I didn't want to go because it was my last year of school and my boyfriend and my friends were in Texas. My grandparents wouldn't take me, so he did, and I'll never forget that.) I love my Uncle G. He and Uncle C have always understood me on some level, which is more than I can say for my Mom. 

It wasn't a long conversation. (He hadn't intended to wake me up. He was planning on leaving a message.) I was half asleep, so I think I'll call him when I get off of work tonight and have a nice, long conversation with him.  And I'll call Uncle C, too.

I get so wrapped up in work and Padawan and Choo Choo and my own life that I, shamefully, go weeks without talking to my family except for when they call me. Lydia (formerly Wheat) is easier to explain: she moved to the middle of nowhere where cell phone reception is crappy. But the rest of my family (Daddy excluded) live only thirty minutes away in good reception areas. I just...I forget sometimes. It's a little late, but I have a New Year Resolution: call my family more.