Screams

Screams...I have been told, more than once, don't scream like that...but isn't a scream supposed to get someone's attention.  So if you hear me scream, you will know something is up...good or bad.  let me share a few of my screams:

When I was 10 or 11 my mom took me to the horse races.  She let me pick one $2 horse for each race.  There were 10 races - $20.  The deal was I could keep any money I won on the races and I didn't have to pay her back.  So I chose my horses.  I don't know how y'all choose your horses when you are at the races but I have always chosen by the colors they are wearing and/or their name (kinda how I choose my wine).  It was the last race and I had not won once so I was pretty frustrated.  But I chose my horse.  He or she, not sure which, was a brown, shiny thing wearing a deep purple.  I love purple, it is my favorite color.  The one thing that I would love to have  is an amethyst ring, but I digress.  Back to the races.   It was time to start the race.  My horse was in the middle of the pack.  Didn't come out leading but wasn't in last place.  And then has he/she made the last corner, he/she took off.  I started jumping up/down and yelling "go! go! go!" and the closer he/she got to being the winner the louder I yelled.  And then he/she beat out the other horses.  I screamed "I won, I won, I won!!!!"  (and I promptly peed my pants - please no teasing, just sharing all the wonderful details).  I was screaming so loud, we were outside ya know, my mom told me to "quiet down, people are looking."  "I don't care, I won, I won!"  You would have thought I won a million dollars, I didn't.  I won $45!  I was so excited.

Another time was when I was in the hospital, I was 18 years old, newly married and having my 4th eye surgery.  I remembered the shots they always gave before you go into surgery.  I was dreading it (I hate shots....I had 124 shots in 23 days when I was 10 years old...shots are no fun!  I started crying the closer it got time for the nurse to come in and give me my shot, ya know, the one that dries your mouth out before you go into surgery.  The closer it got to the time I was to go in, the louder my cries got.  And then this red haired nurse who was wearing this blue sweater came into my room.   She stood at the foot of my bed and yelled over my screams/cries "shut up!  You are not sick!  You can take the shot or go into surgery without it!."  And then she walked away.  I did take the darn shot and I don't think it even hurt that bad.  

I think the most memorable scream was when I was working for the Coalition for Child Advocacy in Bellingham.  It was January 1990.  Background: I have been writing to Oprah, Phil Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael since 1985.  My letters were always the same:  you talk about child abuse and how bad the parents are who abuse their children BUT you never give those parents any resources to stop that abuse.  In the Fall of 1986 I, along with another friend and a Parents Anonymous (PA)facilitator traveled to St. Louis and appeared on the Sally Jesse Raphael. (That's another post in itself.)  We had a great trip but not too fun on the show.  So now fast forward to January 1990.  I was at my desk and my boss, Lynda, was at the computer just to the right of my desk, about 6 -8' from me.  I got paged to a phone call.  I answered it and Karen, from PA Seattle office, saying that the Oprah Winfrey show had called and they were trying to locate me to see if I wanted to be on her show.  I screamed so loud that Lynda spun her chair around and pointed her finger at me and said "IF you scream like that again you are fired!"  And then she turned around and went back to work.  I did go on the Oprah show (again that will be a different post).  I have never forgotten Lynda's response nor have I ever screamed that loud again.  And Lynda and I now joke about that scream!!!

Until this morning.  I had decided that since we weren't going to church this morning I would do some major cleaning in the motor home.  With me being  sick for over two weeks and then Ron sick most of this past week things have sorta not been done around here.  So I got the laundry going and started cleaning in the motor home.  I did the living room, we did the bedroom and then Ron was doing the dishes and I was cleaning off the table and benches in the dining area.  I had cleaned off the table and done the left bench and then moved to the right bench.  I picked up some papers that were on the bench and then I SCREAMED!  There was a dead mouse on the bench.  I also moved real fast.  I pushed Ron out of the way so I could get into the living room.  And then he yelled at me "don't scream like that."  And then he calmly picked up the darn mouse with a plastic bag and put it in the trash.  And then we both just laughed.  Guess I need to go to Hondo and get some mouse bait...don't like those things hanging around my home.

And that is how I came to be thinkin about my screamin skills.