Three Little Words
Three little magic words can set a person’s heart to dancing
and leaping virtually out of his chest with visions of sheer delight going
through his mind! His senses on fire
with thoughts of pleasures as yet unfolded, he anticipates how great life is
going to become with the utterance of just those 3 words. Sadly enough, some of us don’t learn these
three words – said all together in one comprehensive thought – until there is
some frost on the roof and the fire in the furnace is growing a tad dimmer. For
me, I learned them early on, thanks to Big
Foot, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.The words are: "No, Thank You."
It was back in the late 70’s, when my son Jimmy was in the
Cub Scouts. Needless to say, I was a den mother and up to my neck in volunteering
for that noble cause. Someone came up with the idea of a real kick-butt
Halloween party, complete with the landing of a flying saucer and a cameo
appearance of none other then Big Foot himself. I never quite made the
connection between the two, but that’s what the committee voted and decided
upon. Besides, no one dared to come up against fellow committee person Lizette Beesley (who came up with the idea to begin with)
too strongly as none of us wanted to deal with the fall out of her venom-laced
outbursts of sheer anger. So, Big Foot it was to be.
“Who will help make this costume?” Lizette challenged. All
eyes looked downward toward the table – all, that is, except for mine. Knowing
I also had the Brownies, Girl Scouts, 4 H, youth league basketball, and
community marching band volunteer duties to juggle, what do I say? Her eyes were burning two holes into my skull! She knew exactly who to target.
“I’ll do it!” I proclaimed as my stomach pulled inward
toward my bowels and the vein in my forehead throbbed a little bit. After all,
Lizette used the word “help”, insinuating that she was going to be in charge of
the production. I could surely help. After all, what were an extra couple of
hours of my time donated for a good cause, anyway?
That was my first mistake. My second one was in suggesting
the materials of said costume – which she quickly put me in charge of
procuring. Third mistake was I agreed to do the shopping/gathering of all of
the stuff needed. So, the next day I bought four skeins of brown wool, six
yards of burlap and a latch hook gizmo thing. My plan was to latch hook
individual strands of yarn to the burlap, which I would of course fashion into
a one piece suit (like an infant’s onesie, but enormous in size!) Lucky me –
the volunteer to be Big Foot and wear the costume was a full six foot four inch
dad of one of the cubs in my den. So, this costume was going to be extra,
extra, extra large. Oh, boy.
One month later, and with my strained eyes streaming lines of salt
water from seeing almost nothing but six inch lengths of brown wool for four
weeks, and with fingers now permanently curled in the weirdest way from latch
hooking literally thousands of these pieces, it started to really get to me!
The four women who said they would help me never once showed up. It was one
excuse after another – some of them quite creative, I might add. But, nevertheless, there was I like Mother Macree,
latch hooking day after day, night after night until I wanted to pass out!
The big night arrived and our Big Foot was a smash hit! In
fact, I can still hear the ear-splitting screams of the younger kids as they fled in terror from the room, with hysterical, frantic mothers running after
them. To this day, Lizette’s youngest daughter goes into a form of PTSD at seeing the
color brown – which is a strange kind of justice, I think. Score "one" for Karma.
Anyway, I learned from that experience that there are
some times when you simply must take a step back – view the situation for what
it really is (an escape for someone else from some chore they’re rather
avoid)…and firmly aver, “No, thank you!”
Pardon me, but I have to get going now for two committee
meetings here at JW, and will be teaching a class on brain training next week.
Then, our chorus will be getting ready for St. Paddy’s day, and our beading
group is gearing up for a big jewelry sale…and…........
