Sunday, July 19, 2009

T SHIRT PHILOSOPHY


Grandson Nathan didn't get to visit us this summer when Jarrett and Stephen came. He played in the Volleyball National Junior Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia at the time they were with us. We certainly thought about him a lot, especially when we were shooting fireworks on the 4th of July along with their cousins Jesse and Lindsey.
We especially thought about Nathan when we saw a T shirt that said LIFE IS CRAP, so we bought him one. Sometimes negative comments from people make us think that they have that philosophy about life. Nathan has to work at being positive, but being negative is not an unusual attitude for any teenager to have.
However, on the T shirt were also pictures of an ice cream sundae on the left side of the shirt and a carrot on the right side. It said, "I wanted this," underneath the ice cream sundae and said, "I got this," underneath the carrot. Then the words LIFE IS CRAP.
Actually, the T shirt is a very positive thing. We all know that often fertilizer can come from excrement (often called crap) of certain animals. Also, fertilizer is what makes plants grow into healthy vegetables with great nutrients.
Ice cream is not a good thing for health, even though Gramps loves it. It actually makes him grow in the middle, where he doesn't want to grow. No one gets big in the middle by eating carrots. When Gramps is on a health kick the first thing he stops eating is ice cream. BUT carrots, now, carrots have wonderful vitamins in them. My parents always told me to eat my carrots and I would have healthy eyes, able to see in the dark. I can see great in the dark so maybe they were right. Anyway, the T shirt has turned out to be a very positive philosophy for Nathan to display to people.
Crap used as fertilizer makes carrots grow into healthy, beneficial vegetables which improve eyesight, heart health and mental sharpness. Ice cream doesn't have those benefits.
So I guess Nathan's T shirt is a positive lesson, that being that life's good fertilizer grows crops of healthy plants which will benefit us in the future.
I hope everyone who reads Nathan's T shirt will understand the deep meaning behind his T shirt philosophy. Maybe he'll have to explain it to some people, that he's a walking advertisement for eating carrots and getting healthy.
Also I hope that he knows that there are many times when life seems crappy but that you must use those times for good learning experiences that become like nutritious carrots in your life, making you stronger and more mature.
He's a smart kid. He'll figure it out.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

HOOTER HILARITY


On the teenage grandchildren's visit this year we took an unusual excursion. Don't fall out of your chair when you read where we went. We went to Hooters for lunch one day. Jay wanted a Hooter's T shirt to wear on his trip to Cozumel. Lucy didn't want to go at all, thought Hooters had naked ladies and she didn't want to be embarrassed.. Gramps told her Hooters in the neighboring city is just like Applebee's but the girls have on shorts and T shirts. She agreed to go.
Sure enough, It was a nice place with good food and the girls were modestly dressed. Their medium sized busts were not as large as the teenagers had all imagined. I guess the teenagers had imagined that the girls would fall over forward with their larger than life bosoms.
After we walked into the restaurant Lucy remarked that the shorts the girls wear are just like the shorts she plays volleyball in, and that her friend Sue has a bigger bust than the girls at Hooters. The trip was a lesson to them on how wrong judgments can emanate from the imagination.
After we sat there a while having fun, laughing and talking, Gramps looked at some of the waitresses and said, "I'll bet none of them are real, anyway." To which Jackson, the oldest grandson with us, said, "I wasn't thinking anything about that, Grandpa. I was just thinking how beautiful the female body is." Sam, the youngest teenage grandson, said, "I wasn't looking at the girls, I was contemplating the theory of quantum physics." Lucy, our oldest granddaughter, said, "I was contemplating the end of the world." Jay, always the clown, said, "I was thinking exactly what Granpa was thinking." We all roared.
It has always been like that for the entire time our grandkids visit, a laugh a minute.
Everyone thinks we are nutty for taking them to Hooter's, but we don't want to make anything seem forbidden to them when, in reality, it is nothing that they won't see at the neighborhood pool or at a volleyball game. The girls at Hooter's seemed to all of us like the girl next door, sweet and kind, and really good waitresses.
Gramps took the kids to Chaps the next day, a local hot dog place, which is a tradition for them to go to at least once on their visits. When they got back they said the girl who fixed their hot dogs was dressed more revealing than the girls at Hooters.
Go figure!
A valuable lesson learned!