Short stories for the soul

Last month, I wrote a column filled with short stories, and then asked you readers to send in your best, true short stories so I could share them in this column, thus embarrassing you and your loved ones just like I do every week with me and mine.

And you certainly delivered. The stories I received ran the gamut from ironic to hilarious to poignant, and after I had finished reading them all, I had gleaned a few take aways: 1) thank goodness my children aren’t the only ingrates on the planet – I was starting to feel picked on; 2) ingrates or not, kids sure have a way of brightening up the place; and 3) life throws curveballs, whether you’re ready for them or not.

Mike Storms had a curveball thrown at him almost right off the bat (pun!). Writes Mike, “I knew from an early age that I was to be a Jesuit priest. When I graduated from high school I got accepted into the Jesuit Novitiate. After a year they gave me a bus ticket home. I was not what they wanted.” A stint in the Army, followed by a degree in electrical engineering, led him down a different path. “When you flip the switch and the light comes on, I had a part in that,” he said.

Thanks for the electricity, Mike! And thank you to John Riley for this little gem, which sounded so similar to something that would happen in my own house that I wondered if I was being watched. John wrote: “One day my wife was in the kitchen. My daughter was on the floor, surrounded by pots and pans, playing and singing away. When she stopped singing, my wife said, ‘Darby that was wonderful singing.’ Darby looked up at my wife and said, ‘Not singing to you, mom.’ ”

Ahh, the little ingrates! So blunt, so direct, so eye-buggingly honest! In that vein, here’s a couple more stories from the “kids say the darnedest things” category: Lauren Hopkins was reading a trivia question out loud to her 10-year-old son, Bryan. “Who was Ivanhoe’s wife?” she asked. The obvious answer came quickly to Bryan, who immediately piped up, “Mrs. Hoe.”

Margo Buckles shared this story: “One evening, my son, who was about 10, had done something worthy of a scolding. When my husband and I brought up his ‘crime’ at dinner, he replied, ‘I did it because Nina (his sister) mind-controlled me.’ Laughing, we turned to Nina and said, ‘Nina, did you know that you could make your brother do anything that you want him to through mind control?’ The look on her face was priceless.”

If only Margo had had the same tools at her disposal as Sue Hawkins’ mother did, they wouldn’t have had to use mind control at all. Sue’s mother is now 86 years old, but back when she was raising three kids on a cattle ranch, she had to get creative with her discipline methods. “My mother [had a] very effective technique of taking the hotcake turner to church and leaving it on the front seat of the car, just in case we were inclined to misbehave,” remembers Sue. “If we misbehaved we knew we’d exit the church and the hotcake turner would meet our little behinds. This seemed to be very effective and she never had to actually implement this handy tool!”

But it was Alex Momb’s story that made me look around at my beautiful mess with a slightly different eye. Alex wrote, “I remember when I finally traded in my Suburban. It was very sad – no more loading it up with kids and dogs, pulling a tent trailer, and all the fun. About 11 years ago I was driving and decided to stop in Glendive, Montana at a favorite campground we’d always stay at. It was now a five-story Marriott. I kept driving.”

And that’s when I learned my final lesson from these short stories: What I’ve got, right now, with this chaotic family of mine, is the stuff my dreams were always made of. I’d better enjoy it, because someday I’ll be surrounded by quiet walls and ticking clocks, and I’m going to miss it. I’m sure Mrs. Hoe would agree.