Goosebumps

I spend a lot of time telling stories.  Reading them, writing them, and coming up with ones I can “tell with my mouth.”  Every night Jacob challenges me to dig up a new, untold story he’s never heard before.

It started out with just stories about pets I had when I was little.  Which did last awhile as I clearly remember a second grade assignment requiring me to report-out on our twenty-one pets.

The best story I’ve told JJ int this genre is the story of our little farm poodle, Boogie Boo, and how she would run around, barking furiously at our pony, Apache.  Then she’d leap up and bite the hair on his tail, whereby he’d swing her around until she flew off… unscathed.  This particular story was a major hit with my audience as it involved woofing and neighing and flying.

But alas… my aged brain can no longer remember every waking moment with each of our chickens, cockatiels, bunnies, and kittens.  I’ve had to move on to plain old “stories about when I was little.”  I do take some creative license with the term little… basically anything that happened before Jacob was born.

Recently he likes to implore me to tell him sad stories.  I know this is a bad idea.  He is plagued by nightmares and is allergic to sleep.  Yet, once, well maybe twice, I was talked into it.

I told him my very sad story about the untimely demise of Granny Goose by way of a pick-up truck in reverse.  I’m sure this is still too fresh for Grandma to be reading… probably close to 20 years ago and yet it still puts my stomach in knots.  And then of course Jakey was so sad that I needed to tell him a happy story to get the sad story out of his mind.  “Mama, make it go out of my head!”

So, to save my story-telling stature, I quickly swooped-in with the story of our second goose, Lucifer, so-named as he was the devil incarnate.  This is also a hit with my preschool patron as it involves Daddy talking to Granddad while sitting on the patio.  And then Lucifer sneaking-up behind Daddy and biting him venomously on the bottom.  Whereby Daddy swats the villainous gander in the head and gets yelled at by Granddad for poultry persecution.

After this story Jakey tells me, “Mama, it’s still in my head.  Make it go out!”

“I can’t make it go out.  I told you I shouldn’t tell you a sad story.”

“Use my off switch Mom… I have an off switch.”

“Ha!  I’ve been looking for that since the day you were born.”