No Girl Left Behind
Ladies, a crisis is upon us.
Here at the Pearls and Diamonds blog, we were entirely ignorant both of the crisis and of our patriotic duty to take a stand and right it.
Until today.
Visiting the “No Girl Left Behind Website” and learning of the Marriage Crisis…left no doubt as to the wisdom of the solution “proposed.” Government is always good at solving “problems.”
We encourage you to visit the website and join the campaign. Or at least the laughter.
The Skunk Smells His Own Stink
A couple of years ago, Abigail was part of a team to teach abstinence in the local schools. Our first day in the local middle school, she and her partner, Christy, looked at each other and wrinkled up their noses. “It smells horrible!” Christy, who was barely pregnant and fighting morning sickness, exclaimed. “It smells like a ton of mothballs!” Abigail blinked. “Mothballs? It smells like a skunk!”
Over the next several days they choked on the foul air that greeted them every time they entered the school, but they kept their thoughts to themselves.
As their last day wrapped up, a teacher from a neighboring classroom stopped by the help with clean up. “Whew,” she remarked. “It will sure be nice when that skunk smell dissipates.”
Abigail looked up quickly from the papers she was gathering . “So it was a skunk?”
“Yeah,” she grimmaced. “A whole family of them moved in under the school. They weren’t too happy to be moved out and let us all know it.”
Abigail glanced at Christy, who was holding her nose and looking sickly. “Christy thought it was mothballs.”
“Oh!” the teacher exclaimed. “That’s because the janitor dumped loads of mothballs in the hall in an attempt to cover the stench!”
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Caught in the Rain
Nathaniel was always a logical thinker–quick to catch on.
When he was being potty trained, his mom used to hang his wet pants over the curtain rod for the shower. One day he came into the bathroom after his papa had ridden home from work on the motorcycle–in the rain. In horror, Nathaniel announced, “Papa wet his pants!” Of course, his Papa didn’t relish the sound of those words and quickly corrected him: “No. I got caught out in the rain.” But Nathaniel knew what pants hung over the curtain rod meant and he found his mom and told her, “Papa wet his pants.” “Nathaniel,” his Papa corrected firmly, “I didn’t wet my pants. I got caught out in the rain.”
A few days later, Papa came home to discover Nathaniel’s pants hung over the curtain rod. Knowing this meant his son still had a ways to go on the potty training he soberly asked him, “Nathaniel, did you wet your pants?” Without missing a beat, Nathaniel answered, “No, I got caught out in the rain.”
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“Contractions Starting Now”
With the birth of Nathaniel and Lauren’s baby almost upon them, they’ve been faithfully putting into practice all that they are learning at their Bradley Method Natural Childbirth class. Part of Nathaniel’s job as “coach” is to help his wife relax, so he developed a new “game.” Any time he says “contractions starting now”, Lauren is to lean back in her chair, close her eyes and relax. They were out to supper one evening at a nice, little restaurant when Nathaniel suddenly said, “Contractions starting now.” With a sigh, Lauren put down her fork, leaned back and closed her eyes, wondering why the game in the middle of a restaurant. But Nathaniel’s “coaching” had an ulterior motive: as Lauren opened her eyes she caught him snagging a juicy piece of chicken from her plate! So much for helping her relax.
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Lesser of Two Evils?
Posted by Abigail
Two statements concerning girls have come to my attention:
Girls are evil (Girls = evil, mathematically stated, as evidenced below):
And
Girls are the lesser ones. (Boys > girls)
So, if girls are evil and are also the lesser ones, doesn’t that make us the lesser of two evils?
Because we have been denied the ability to be more evil than guys.
Which makes us, in effect, the better half of society.
Proven as follows:
It’s common knowledge that mankind is evil. All of them. So if girls are lesser than boys (note…they didn’t say lesser what), they also must be a lesser evil. Very simple.
Given:
Girls=evil
and
Boys > girls
we have:
Boys > evil
Which means that boys are more than evil.
Here’s a good/evil line:
(Perfect) (Almost perfect) (Very good) (Good) (Almost good) (Almost evil) (Evil) (More evil) (Wicked) (Downright devilish)
<——+———–+————+———-+——–+————–+——-+——-+——–+————–+——>
Girls = evil & Boys > evil
So the evil value for boys falls to the right of that for girls…making them MORE evil than girls.
Though willing to work within the framework of two faulty assumptions to make a logical point, I now find it necessary to go back to the root for a more truthful statement:
In that, if girls cost Time x Money then the equation
girls = Time x Money (and therefore girls = evil)
is false.
It implies that possessing girls equals possessing time x money, which is rather opposite of the truth.
Two other options for the idea that girls cost boys time and money are below:
boys – (Time x Money) = girls or girls = -(Time x Money)
with a shortcut from the earlier formula we derive:
boys – evil = girls or girls = -evil
So we have boys minus evil equals girls, which means that boys are more evil than girls. You must either take evil from the boys to get girls or you must add it to the girls to get boys!
or
we have girls equaling a negative amount of evil, which would imply that girls are equal to less than evil–or have no evil at all!
What’s my point?
Simply this: most prejudices are based on misunderstanding or logical fallacies.
Note: The logic shown in this post is simply the derivative of logic employed by those > I and has no bearing upon my actual sentiments.
12 or 21?
Posted by Abigail
I visited a teacher friend’s second-grade classroom yesterday as a guest story-teller. My 12-year-old sister, Lydia, came along as a marvelous lovely assistant and personified Little Red Riding Hood while I rattled on and on about the Little Red Hen, the Three Billy Goats Gruff and Puss in Boots. We were just wrapping up our performance and getting ready to head out when the students stopped us with a surprising question: “Which one of you is older?” I blinked. Lydia giggled. Then they pointed to Lydia, “She is!” Forty years from now I might appreciate their conjecture.
Christian Community?
Posted by Abigail
We have an enormous table, often filled with guests–usually students from the nearby college. The atmosphere is that of a huge family with an overabundance of overgrown sons. Lydia, as the little lady of the family, sat next to me one Sunday at lunch, mouselike, unobtrusive, trying to eat her food in peace while chaos raged around her. And I do mean chaos. Bruce was taking every opportunity to snatch dinner rolls from her plate. Josiah gobbled grapes out of her fingers as she held them out of reach of Zach. As she settled in at last to enjoy a piece of Lazy Daisy Oatmeal cake, Josh reached for her bowl. “Thank you, Lydia, for offering to share your cake with me!” No sooner had she pulled it out of his reach than Tommy snagged it from across the table. “Lydia!” Josh exclaimed in indignation. “Did you see that? He stole OUR cake!”
Complete Idiots
Posted by Abigail
Once upon a time I was a children’s writer. I’m not really sure what happened, but that phase of my life faded by and now I co-author this funky little blog for young ladies. Anyway, back in my children’s writer days I borrowed an amazing book by Harold Underdown, called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books.”
My younger sister Lydia was about seven at the time and was my poor, unsuspecting guinea pig for many a writing project. One day I sat on my bedroom floor studying when she finally spilled a question that had been plaguing her for some time.
Lydia: “Abigail, what’s the person who writes a book called?”
Me: “The Author.”
Lydia: “That’s what I thought. And the person who draws the pictures is the illustrator, right?”
Me: “That’s right.”
Lydia: “And isn’t the person who, like, puts it all together into a book the publisher?”
Me: “You’re so good! Yes.”
Lydia: (Exasperated.) “Then what in the world is an idiot?!”
Appearance-based Assumptions
Posted by Abigail
The day after Thanksgiving boasted huge sales and my parents made the early morning trek to take advantage of some of them. But the pressures of Black Friday often lead to split-second decisions, so they kept track of their receipts for future mind-changes. Sure enough, the next week found my 18-year-old brother, Josiah, and I headed into the local Stuff Mart laden with returns–a couple of crock-pots, a coffee grinder, some other items.
“We’ve got half a million returns,” I said apologetically to the greeter.
“Actually,” Josiah interposed, “Less than six.”
The greeter just flashed us an indulgent smile as she began stickering boxes. “That’s fine. Don’t worry about it. When I got married…”
Desirability Vs. Availability
Posted by Abigail
Checking our blog stats can be rather mind-boggling–or entertaining. The searches some folks make are incredible. Even more incredible that they land them here: at the modest home of Pearls and Diamonds. But over the months we’ve been blogging, I’ve noticed an alarming trend. I don’t believe anyone has ever searched for my name. But Lauren, on the other hand, has had quite a few hits.
The first to show up was something like, “Lauren is amazing.” True that. Followed by, “Beautiful Lauren.” I concede.
But they’ve become disconcerting. “Does Lauren like me?” “In love with Lauren.” “I want to marry Lauren.”
And yesterday, one final, desperate google search: “How can I get Lauren to marry me?”
In case that poor, deluded individual comes back, I’d like to set the record straight: Dear friend, it’s hopeless. You’re too late. Amazing and beautiful as she is, Lauren is already married and madly in love. So sorry. Just give up, OR ELSE I’LL CALL MY BROTHER!
Pearls and Diamonds 