Recently I read a story about a teacher in Georgia who won $10,000.00 by reading the fine print in her insurance contract.  Buried in the wherefores and theretos was a small line that said the first customer who emailed their name to a specific email address would be awarded $10,000.00!  She emailed the very day she signed the contract and was the first person (likely the only one!) and indeed, received her 10K!

               It was a heartwarming story, though it did make me consider fine print.  Usually, fine print buries the rather mundane and sometimes alarming facts about the contract or product.  Case in point, are the many fine advertisements on television these days for pharmaceuticals that are designed to cure everything from itchy skin to heart conditions.  The ads always show happy, peppy, engaged people doing happy, peppy, engaged activities – gardening, painting, dancing, enjoying amusement parks, and (my personal favorite) taking baths in bathtubs in fields with no discernible source of water.

               But watch carefully and tiny little words appear for a nanosecond across the bottom of the screen.  If you happen to be able to pause your television, you can find out (if you get up, walk across the room, and squint) that this medication might cause dizziness, headaches, confusion, boils, hemorrhoids, suicidal thoughts, sudden bursts of anger, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, and infections, sometimes, fatal.            

               Seriously?  I believe I’ll just itch, thank you very much.

               You have to read coupons and print ads pretty carefully, too.  I love those ads that proclaim in big, bold lettering – big enough for me to read without glasses – that ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING IN THE STORE IS 40% OFF!  But at the bottom, in print I need my jigsaw puzzle magnifying glass to read, is the

 information about how this doesn’t cover perfumes, jewelry, housewares, or name brand clothing.  So it’s not absolutely everything, but other than that, the ad is completely accurate!

               There’s a commercial for a quick loan company that shows happy people getting thousands of dollars on the same day they applied!  Big letters say you can get up to $5000!  What a deal.  The fine print that flashes quickly on the screen does mention that this load comes with an incredible 99.25% interest rate.  In other words, you’ll have to pay back about twice what you get within a year.  Wow, that’s some fine print!

               My own fine print problem came in a box of pasta.  I was looking for an alternative to pasta that might have less wheat or processed flour.  We had tried chickpea macaroni and it was pretty good.  So I found a box of black bean spaghetti and was pretty tickled.  We like black beans.  The wording on the box seemed crystal clear.

               I cooked the pasta and made some meatballs and we sat down to a wonderful dinner.  Well, the meatballs were wonderful.  The pasta – not so much.  I powered through and ate my serving, but my husband pushed his to the side and proclaimed them “worms.”  They were, in fact, pretty nasty, and tasted nothing like either spaghetti or black beans.

               Plucking the box out of the trash, I turned it over to read the ingredients.  Not a black bean in the list (the tiny list).  However, it was comprised of primarily black SOYbean!  Fine print got me, because I didn’t read it. 
               Please, please, read the fine print!

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I tend to be a weird magnet for both people and situations.  Normally, I don’t mind this as I meet many interesting people this way.  But occasionally, it’s a tad embarrassing.  This is never more true than at sporting events.

          I realized this very early on with my (now) husband.  When we were dating, he took me to about 50 basketball games one winter-spring.  He was following a local high school team, which went all the way to the state championships and of course, we were watching college ball on television.  By the time April arrived, I was pretty much an expert at all things basketball.

          Then he took me to the Ohio State spring football game.  It was packed.  Early on in the game, the referee blew his whistle and made a circular motion with his hands.  I stood up and yelled, outraged and loudly, “Travelling??!!!”

          Two things happened simultaneously:  about 100 people turned to look at the ditzy blonde yelling the wrong call at the ref.  My husband (then boyfriend) turned to chat with the guy next to him – a perfect stranger, I might add – so that those 100 people had no idea he was with the ditzy blonde.

          Years later, there was a game at which we were challenged twice (before the game started) about our seats.  We were correct of course, because my husband always knows exactly where his seats are.  This game was also packed and my husband was next to a large – very large – stranger, whom we called “Bubba.”  My husband had nowhere to put his right arm.  He could either put it straight out in front of him or drape it around Bubba’s shoulders.  That ended up helping us when four folks arrived late – plowing through people without waiting for a break in the game – blocking our view and then standing around looking at seat numbers.  My frustrated husband said, “People, get here on time” at which one of the women began to frantically whisper to her husband. Her hubby obligingly turned to look, but when he saw my husband (who’s about 6’1” and no slouch) with his arm around Bubba the Tank, he wisely sat.

          I won’t tell the long and hilarious story of the time we went to a game and lost our car keys.  And there were two different times that tornados and severe thunderstorms drenched us at football games. Let’s just say 100,000 people do not evacuate a stadium quickly.

          These kinds of adventures have led me to expect bizarre things to happen to us at sporting events.  But they did not prepare me for our most recent baseball game.  Naturally, I had to use the bathroom in the ninth inning.  Most folks had either (a) left already, or (b) were staying to the very end and not leaving their seats.  I entered the restroom to find it completely empty – that’s strange!  I had my choice of 20 stalls, so I quickly completed my business.

          The stalls had one of those little round locks, with a tiny bar about one inch long by ¼” wide to grip and turn.  It did not surprise me to find that I had chosen the stall with the lock that wasn’t working well.

          I tried to turn it, but nothing happened.  I yanked on the door, but it didn’t budge.  After several rounds of this, I was beginning to get concerned.  I didn’t want to crawl on the bathroom floor under the door, but checking out the space, I had a bigger worry.  If I was eyeballing the space correctly, I was very likely to get stuck.  So…did I want to be stuck on the bathroom floor on my stomach or on my back?  My thought was – not at all!

          I kept turning and yanking and just as I thought I’d have to wait until the end of the game, when surely my husband would notice I hadn’t returned, the door popped open.

          Weird.  But then, I’m a magnet.

I use this blog to post a lot of my misadventures in life.  I tend to have funny (and sometimes that means hilarious, and sometimes just peculiar) situations that occur on a pretty regular basis.  Throw in my penchant for exaggeration and I can often bring a smile to people’s faces with my storytelling.
               Unfortunately, the attraction that funny situations have for me (I am a weird magnet!) has apparently been passed on to our son. He had a morning that rivaled one of my own and it went like this:

               He woke up a bit late, which started his morning poorly.  He had an important meeting scheduled at work and wanted to get there in time to be “ready.”  So he took a very quick shower – or tried to!  The shower backed up, so it was quicker than he wanted, and he made a note to contact the plumber that day.            

Pulling out of his driveway, he noticed – unhappily – that his gas tank was a bit low.  He stopped for gas by the interstate.  Pulling adjacent to the pump and pulling out his wallet, he was dismayed to find that he’d left his credit card at home.  But huzzah!  He had $4 and figured he could get a couple of gallons.  (Okay, one gallon, but that would get him to work and back home later).

               He went into the station and tried to be patient while he waited in line to hand over the four dollars.  When he returned to his car the gas tank had somehow become “locked,” which of course he didn’t notice until he had sprayed half the gas ($2.00 worth) onto the side of the car and his pants and shoes.  He got the tank unlocked and pumped in the remaining half gallon.  Being fully aware that this was not sufficient to get him where he needed to go, he headed home to retrieve his credit card.

               Time being of the essence, as the meeting was looming ever closer; he was expecting the ten-minute drive to seem long.  He was not disappointed!  He immediately got behind farm equipment (it is April in Ohio, after all) and was unable to pass them.  Upon arriving home, he raced into the house and grabbed his card – no time to change clothes!

               He drove back to the gas station but again had the fortune to get behind farm equipment going somewhere to create food for us.  He finally got to the station, used his card to fill the tank, and left hurriedly to get to work.

               He arrived in downtown Dayton and at his office with good news and bad news.  The good news was he had one minute to spare before the meeting was scheduled to begin.  The bad news was he reeked of gasoline and his shoes squeaked every time he took a step.

               Plunking into his seat and opening his computer was the final straw on the camel’s back – the mandatory meeting had been canceled!

               There must be an adage or funny saying to cover this type of morning.  In my world, it’s just called “business as usual.” Or, as our son would say, “welcome to it!”

About five years ago, my husband – a tender-hearted man who doesn’t like cats – found a kitten outside in the winter.  This kitten was practically starved and trying to stay warm in our springhouse.  My husband noted that this cat had large blue eyes and some Siamese in her.  Although he doesn’t like cats much, he has tolerated them over the years (because of his deep love and affection for me!).

               He could have taken this cat to the animal shelter or just ignored it.  But having that tender heart, he fed it.  And so… then we had an outside cat to feed along with our large dog and our “inside” cat (the stray that was dumped in our yard the winter of 2015 when the temperatures were below zero). 

               Effie, the inside cat, and Forest, our dog, were fine with the new kitten.  We named her Limestone, and as anyone knows, once you name an animal, you’re all theirs.  So Limestone stayed outside, looking through the storm door as spring and summer came and pawing at it on the occasions Effie was on the other side. 

               When people approached Limestone, she ran (including us) for the most part.  Visitors to our home never saw her, as she had a lot of places to hide and did so with alacrity!  I tried to put a collar on her several times and she always managed to get them off in parts unknown. 

               By 2020, she was nuzzling us when we were outside and often allowed me to pick her up and cuddle her.  She never wanted in the house and still hid from most other folks. 

               In 2021, Effie passed away.   Limestone began venturing into the house almost every day, clearly trying to find her little grey pal.  After a few months of this, she started to curl up on Forest’s bed and sleep in the afternoons.

               Then in 2022, Forest passed away.  From that time on, Limestone slept on his bed (until we got her one of her own), and often napped in my lap.  She would let my husband pet her (he did save her life, after all), but that was about it.  I was the only human she really seemed to feel safe around.

               Limestone would sleep all night on her bed then go out in the morning and cat around (pun intended) until nap time in the afternoon.  She’d eat, go out again until bedtime, then come in for the night.

               This schedule lasted nearly a year.  Occasionally she’d sit on my lap, but mostly she was content in her bed.  A few weeks ago, she came in at bedtime, but wanted right back out.  We let her out and waited about an hour, but she didn’t return.  We went to bed, thinking she’d be at the door in the morning when we got up.

               But she wasn’t.   We traipsed around our property and I even went down to the creek.  With all the rain we’d had, the creek was high and rapid.  I worried that she’d either been taken (no collar!) or swept away by the creek and had perished.  We couldn’t find her anywhere.

               That was a long day for me.  At 9:00 that evening, we were watching television and heard a familiar “plunk” on our porch.  We opened the door and there Limestone was!  She came in and went straight to her food bowl, after which she curled up on her bed and went to sleep.  I was so thrilled, I didn’t check her out.

               She avoided us touching her for many days, until I finally spotted the large cut on her head.  My husband noted the lump.  Something had surely hit her – and hard! – on her head, right above her eye.  We suspect she was unconscious for a while. 

               But she made it home from wherever that happened, and at this time, seems completely normal.  Except….

               She’s now sleeping on Matt’s chair, even when he’s in it.  She gets up on his lap and hunkers down for naps.  She wants to be right by his side, all evening.  My friend says she might feel safer around the alpha male.

               I think she might have brain damage.  Plus, I’m a wee bit jealous.