Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I am Mashie Niblick.  I am presently employed as the greenskeeper of the Hoity Toity Golf Club in the big city of Tracy. My wife, Pauline, was supposed to be working on a top-secret cypher, but she is also a full time Mommie.  Don’t fuss about the spelling.  She is in a Mommie Club, and they spell it that way.

I had been out that morning to do greenkeeping things at the Hoity Toity club.  There was a tournament in progress, but I had a crew standing by in case unexpected rain came, and water needed to be removed from the greens.  They knew how, but then again, the weather report was for sunny skies.  Besides, if a freakish storm appeared, I could be back at the club before the players would be allowed back on the course.  I did not make my presence known.  I thought it would be instructive to know why Pauline wanted my cellphone.  After all, I was the one leaving the house.

Andrew had just awakened and gotten a diaper change.  He was content sitting in his carrier.

Pauline set her government cypher work aside.  It was giving her a headache.  She said, “Baffy, I am going to call Daddy.”

Baffy giggled, “But Daddy’s phone is right here!”

Pauline said, “Yes, I know.  I want you to answer it.”

Baffy answered the phone when it rang.  “Hello, Daddy’s not at home right now.”  She was laughing so hard that she could barely finish what she was saying.  “Do you want me to take a messy?”  Then she turned to Pauline, “Mommie!  You have it on the face thing.”

Pauline said, “Yes, Baffy.  I want you to watch the video call while we do an experiment.  I’m going to turn the volume down.  I am going to switch the camera to Andrew.”

Baffy asked, “Why are you going to do that?  Andrew can’t talk!  He’s just a baby!”

Pauline said, “Don’t call your brother just a baby.  You couldn’t talk when you were his age either.”

Baffy said, “But that’s different.”

Pauline asked, wondering where this was going, “And how was it different, Baffy?”

Baffy giggled, “Andrew is just a baby, but when I was born, I was so surprised that I couldn’t talk for over a year!”

Pauline groaned, “That is a very old joke.  Where did you hear that one?  Have you been listening to your Uncle Jacob again?”

Baffy laughed, “No, Mommie, GrandPa told me that one.  He said, since I went to church, it was a joke full of Grace.”

Pauline moaned, “No, I think he said it was first told by Gracie Allen.  But look at the picture of Andrew, and walk to the hallway door.  Now say something.”

Baffy did as instructed, giggling as she went.  She said, “Something!  Hey, Mommie, Andrew turned his head.”

Pauline said, “That’s right!  Andrew is four and a half months old, and he has been turning his head toward you whenever you say something.  So, now go to the kitchen door and say something else.”

Baffy did as instructed, giggling as she went.  She said, “Something else!  Mommie, Andrew did it again.”

Baffy then walked back to the carrier.  She looked in and got close to Andrew and he started to laugh.

Then Baffy looked at Pauline and asked, “Now do I get some Sperry Mints?”

Pauline said, “What is this about Sperry Mints?”

Baffy said, “You said we were going to do something on the phone for some Sperry Mints.”

Pauline shook her head.  “No, I said we were doing an experiment.  I wanted you to know that Andrew follows your voice whenever he hears it.  You are going to have to be a good big sister because Andrew already knows your voice and he loves his big sister.”

Baffy said, “Ibie said she was going to be a big sister, and I already was a big sister, but what’s a big sister?”

Pauline snickered, “Thank you for letting me know that Dr. Callie is expecting.  That’s nice to know since we are good friends.  But a big sister is an older sibling of either a girl or boy.  In your case, you have a brother.  And I want you to know that you will have to share things with your brother.  You know that you and your brother have the same birthday.”

Baffy looked shocked, “What?!”  Pauline nodded.  “Did you do that on purpose?”  Pauline shook her head.  “Did Daddy have something to do with that?”

Pauline said, “No, Baffy.  When you are pregnant, the baby comes when it comes.  Andrew was ready to come into this world.  I did not even want him to be born on your birthday.”

Baffy threw her hands up.  “I have one birthday party, and then next year, I have to share it with my brother?!   Do I have to share the presents?”

Pauline shrugged, “Some of your presents can be things that only you would be interested in.  The same goes for Andrew, but this next year, he will only be one.  He won’t be talking, pointing to toys that he likes, and stuff like that.  We can get him presents that are designed to enhance the learning of a one-year-old.  There won’t be competition on the present front until later on.  Like you might both be interested in building blocks or puzzles or coloring books.  And you will have to share those.  You might have to teach him some things.”

Baffy asked, “What happens if he doesn’t listen when I teach him.”

Pauline looked sternly at her.  “That is a job for your Daddy and me.  Remember that your brother loves you, but he might do things that will make you angry.  He might play with something and break it by accident.”

Baffy looked shocked, “Oh, no!  Mommie!  Not my gurglezoid fizzle!”

Note: To explain, Scarlet Ibis Yeggs (“Ibie”) found a chicken drumstick leg bone in a sandbox outside the early child development department at the university.  Baffy was with her at the time.  They invented this entire story about how this was a fossil of a gurglezoid, an extinct dinosaur version of a turtle (turkle to the two unrelated girls who consider themselves twins – and Ibie is about three months older).  Gurglezoids were fast runners which blows the whole fable about the tortoise and the hare out of the water, since a gurglezoid could easily outrun the hare anyway.  But after a few months of Baffy digging up flowerbeds and sandboxes, wanting a gurglezoid “fizzle” of her own, we noticed a bush in our front yard that had died.  Before digging it up and replacing it with a fully-grown shrub from the Hoity Toity greenhouse (Amy G. Dala said I could.  I did not steal it.), I slipped a turkey wing bone under the bush.  Baffy helped me swap out the shrubs in the early Spring when the ground was soft enough and she grabbed the gurglezoid fizzle.  Dr. Callie “scienced” the fizzle and determined that the difference in the leg bone fossils was that one was a front leg and the other was a hind leg.  The unrelated twins are now even more obsessed.  They have even gone to the maintenance bay at Lily the Pink where the Turtle storm chasing vehicle is maintained to check out all the high-tech materials used in the turtle shells to see if they might have remnants of gurglezoid in them.  But they were disappointed when the shells were determined to be metal alloys used to protect the windows and the Turtle itself in a severe storm. Poached, Callie, Pauline, and I are hoping that they miscover something else soon.  The second fizzle was so that they each had one, but do two-year-olds really get that obsessed?  Why not get obsessed with butterflies or something?  But, back to the story.

Pauline shook her head.  “No, Baffy.  Your gurglezoid fizzle and the gurglezoid fizzle that Ibie found are in a glass case in the Ornithology lab at the university.  You and Ibie go to that case every time you go to the university to gaze at your miscovery.  When I said that Andrew might break something, I am thinking a doll of some sort might break.  I do not want you being mean to your brother.  You might have contributed to the breaking of the doll, and he just finished it off.  You need to show mercy and forgive him.  If he does things on purpose, then Mommie and Daddy will handle it.  I want you two to show love to each other.”

Baffy was thinking of her dolls, and she wasn’t quite buying into this request.  “Mommie, did you forgive your brother when he broke your dolly?”

Pauline replied, “I didn’t have a brother, Baffy.”  Baffy asked, “A Sister?”  Pauline said, “Nope, Baffy, I was an only child.”

Baffy slapped her cheeks with her hands in shock.  “How is that possible?!”

Pauline laughed at Baffy’s reaction, but then she got serious.  “Baffy, my Mommie died of a drug overdose soon after I was born.  Your Grandma Tozer found me and rescued me.  Granddad Tozer and Grandma raised me as if I were their child.”

Baffy asked, “So, Grandma and Granddad aren’t my real grandparents?”

Pauline said, “They are my real grandparents.  They are your great-grandparents.  My Mommie was their daughter.  She was a preacher’s kid, and she rebelled, running away, dropping out of school, and getting pregnant with me.  When I got to that age, I rebelled a little myself, but that’s when GrandPa caught me and took me to a cabin in the mountains.  He taught me how to pick locks, crack safes, get into houses and back out of them without anyone noticing.  I became a master at such things.  I thought I was the baddest preacher’s kid ever.  It was a long time later that I learned that GrandPa had gotten Grandma and Granddad together in the first place, and I was the child he never had, other than Thou down at the mission.”

Baffy smiled and nodded.  “I like playing with Jayne and Ozzie.  They are twins, just like me and Ibie!”

Pauline groaned, “Jayne and Ozzie are Thou and Maeve’s twin children.  You and Ibie are just really good friends.”

Baffy nodded, “Yeah!  Twin friends!”

Pauline threw up her hands, “I give up.  I will accept that, twin friends.”

Baffy looked into the carrier.  “Mommie, Bubba is making a weird face.”

Pauline groaned, “He’s making a mess in his diaper.  And why are you calling Andrew by that name?”

Baffy said, “Someone at school said that they called their brother, Bubba.”

Pauline frowned, “Baffy, you are two years old.  You do not go to school.”

Baffy said, “It was at Mommie Jochebed’s or somewhere.  Maybe Sunny School.”

Pauline moaned, “That’s Sunday school, Baffy.  One of my disciplines is Speech Therapy.  Try to enunciate properly, dear.”

Baffy said, seriously, “The only other person to hear my creative language is a little boy who can’t talk, can’t walk, and he poops in his diaper.  Isn’t that right, Bubba?”

Pauline started mumbling, “The mess in his diaper has not bothered him yet.  He is laughing at Baffy’s comment.  But all my mind could think of at that moment was my grown son driving down the road in a pickup truck, wearing bib coveralls, boots with no socks, and no shirt, and a sign on the back of the truck that says, ‘Ya kneed Far Wood, Contack Bubba, at BR 549.’ (translation: If You Need Firewood, contact Bubba.)  Wait, that phone number was for Junior Sample on the TV show, Hee Haw.  No one named Bubba, but then he says to contack Bubba, so I guess you call Junior, and he relays the message.”  Pauline shook her head and shouted.  “What am I doing!  I am editing a daymare.  That is, a nightmare that comes while awake in the day while daydreaming.  Just let the daymare go out with the garbage!  Don’t critique it, Pauline!”

With his mother shouting, Andrew started getting fussy.  Pauline went to the nursery to change his diaper.  She returned wearing her throw so that she could discretely feed Andrew.

I walked in, “Hey, Bubba, save some for me!”

Pauline shot daggers from her eyes in my general direction.  “Number One, do not encourage this Bubba thing.  Number Two, these are for Bubba and not you.  See!!! You got me saying it!”

I leaned over and kissed my wife on the forehead.  She said, “Lippies, Lippies!”  And I kissed her on the lips, but not a long romantic kiss.  She was still a bit angry.  And I was fighting back the laughter.

I suggested, “You have taught our daughter some important things about being a big sister.  How would you like to go out to dinner, the four of us?”

Pauline asked, “Where?”

I laughed, “The Levys wanted to treat us to a dinner at the Hoity Toity Club.  No restrictions on what you want to order.”

Pauline snickered, “As long as we don’t talk shop.  But you seem to know too much about what Baffy and I were doing.  You are a sneak.  If this greenskeeper job doesn’t work out, you might want to think about being a spy.”

I kissed her again.  “But how is your cypher coming?”

Pauline groaned, “Sometimes, I have the idea that our enemies write gibberish just to make the human computer, like me, get a headache.”

Credits

The Perils of Pauline was a movie serial started in 1914. It defined many serials that followed, including the Perils of Pauline “moment,” the cliffhanger that caused you to return to the theater for the next installment.

Pauline explained her daymare adequately, but there may still be a sign on a road near West Virginia, but in Pennsylvania, “Far Wood 4 Sale.”  I just assume that they mean firewood.

“Lippies” was my wife’s command for me to kiss her on the lips, especially if I went for the forehead or cheek.

Before the advent of the computer, a person who could calculate complex mathematics in a very short time was given a job title of “computer”.