Monthly Archives: September 2009

From the Diary of Potty Training Nightmares – Part Three

After one and a half months potty training was a bust for me. Everything I was doing was yielding little results. I would have one success only to be followed by more and more failures. All parties involved where frustrated. It was time to research again. I needed more graphs. I needed more data. I needed more ideas. I needed Google.

Google and I are great friends. I knew her when she was a newborn. Tyler introduced me to her fancy search engine and although he referred to her as a “thing” I knew immediately she was a female, because who else can keep all that information straight and organized?

Google provided me with the fresh restart I needed. If anything it was nice to see what other parents were doing and that I was not the only one. I did get a bit angry at some naive parents’ suggestions. It seems when some people have an easy time with it they feel that everyone else with problems must be doing it wrong. They also have a tendency to rub in their accomplishments. One parent insisted that all she did was tell her daughter to “now pee on the potty” and the next day she was out of diapers. She was chastising another parent that was having trouble telling her, “You’re making this all too complicated. Potty training is so easy!” I wanted to invite her to my home and prove it to me. I also wanted to crush her spirit.

I have never wished harm on another human, so I knew I was stressed on the subject when I had these thoughts. I also knew I was getting delirious when I was willing to spend unimaginable amounts of money to help me get the potty job done. I am extremely frugal and when I was looking up flights to the other side of the United States for a potty training boot camp I knew I was hitting my breaking point.

I did stumble on some interesting information during all my research and decided to completely change my attitude about the whole thing. I decided to make the process more fun and inviting. It needed to fit both my personality and Isaac’s.

First of all I needed to teach Isaac a few skills to help him feel successful. He needed to know what wet and dry meant. He needed to be more of a pro at pulling his own pants down. He also needed to be clearer on what was expected of him. He also needed more motivation than just pleasing his parents.

For the next few weeks I worked on these skills with him. I would point out wet items and dry items in the house. He wore mostly cotton underwear at home so I could continue to show him wet and dry and say, “hey you are going pee pee.” When I would notice he was going, I would say “now you are wet. We like to stay dry.” I would try to make this as non-threatening and casual as possible. I then would comment, “someday you will put your pee in the potty. That will be awesome!”

I had him watching every potty video I could find that I felt was of high quality. The fact that Elmo used the potty too was a huge eye opener for him. We talked a lot about the potty and how we all use the potty. I got a ton of children’s potty books and read them to him often. We would talk about the characters and point to the pictures. We would take field trips to our own potty and talk about the things we read about. Our toys used the potty often and we would wipe their bottoms. He had a set of bath cars that would fill with water in a small hole out the bottom and we would hold them over the toilet and they would “pee” into the toilet. Isaac would dutifully wipe them clean and flush. He was very encouraging to them and would exclaim “Good job, red car! Good job Lighting McQueen!”

I also tried using this same technique for poop. When he would poop in a diaper we would hold the diaper over the toilet and let it fall in and then explain, “Poop’s home is in the potty. Poop belongs in the potty. When we poop we will try to poop into the potty like mommy and daddy.” For a teaching session I got one of his toys and it would grunt and strain over his potty chair and poop out a Hersey’s chocolate square. It was all I had in my cupboard. The first time I tried this Isaac’s eyes were huge and he squealed in delight. He then dove straight in after the candy and quickly plunked it in his mouth. Thankfully the potty hadn’t been used yet. He then yanked the toy from my hand and shook and squeezed the thing all the while excitedly questioning, “Where is the chocolate? Where did it go? More poo poo chocolate, please!” I learned my lesson not to use anything as easily recognizable as Hersey’s chocolate again.

Isaac was also still weary to sit on the potty. So I had to make that more inviting. I ditched the potty chair for a while, since I felt too many negative feelings were attached to its use. I went and got a potty chair that fit over our toilet seat and a stool. I then decorated up the toilet with paper and put waxed paper over the tank area. I put play dough and some toy cars up there as well. I faced him backwards on the toilet and let him color pages I ripped out of a coloring book and taped to the back of the seat. I chose car characters since he was really into that at the time. I would give him water and after an hour I would take him in there to play.

I did all this for about a month and really only got him to pee on the potty a few times. I was happy with the results, because at this point I was just happy he was sitting there without fuss or major melt down. The real miracle came on a day when I least expected it. He had been sitting on the potty coloring and decided he was done after twenty minutes. He climbed off and we both went into the living room. I noticed I had an email, so I started to reply as he was playing with some toys. We hadn’t gotten around to putting his pants back on.

After a few moments he wandered back into the bathroom and I quickly tried to finish up my email in case he tried to get into some trouble in there. Quiet is never good when it comes from a two-year-old boy.

Suddenly he came running back into the living room exclaiming a bunch of incoherent toddler speak of which I could only understand the words “potty” and “fell in.” He also looked extremely worried. I immediately begin to panic over the number of Tyler’s fancy techno gadgetry that could have been dropped in the toilet. I rushed into the room as if I could save the doomed device or catch it lest it be hanging on a precipice. Upon my arrival I peered into the toilet hesitantly expecting to find an iPod only to discover a child-sized turd. I had never been so happy to find a floater in my life. I knew that it was not in there before and only Isaac and I were in the house. I really hoped I didn’t have a toddler-sized intruder using our toilet that was going to spoil my fun. I jumped up and down and screamed happily and Isaac’s expression changed from worry to glee as he realized what was happening. I immediately took a picture with my phone and sent a picture and text to my husband. I then called him to relay the newest achievement. Tyler awkwardly spoke with Isaac and I while trying to avoid using the words ‘pee’ ‘poop’ and ‘potty’ and not alarm his co-workers to the strange client he might be working with that would require him to use such vocabulary.

My pessimistic side was trying to convince me that this was a freak accident and he probably pooped on the floor and shoveled it into the potty. But my optimistic side was winning out and I was assured that all of our hard work for the last two months was finally paying off. After this point I knew it was all a matter of practice and continue doing what I was doing, since it was finally working.

Isaac randomly used the potty for the next few weeks and I was comfortable with the way things were going. He was not a master of the potty domain yet, but I felt he was getting there.

Just before the beginning of the spring season my brother came to live with us until the baby was due. It was a nice arrangement: he did lots of chores around our house and yard and got free rent until school was out. I slightly fretted over this big change in our household and how it would affect our potty training progress. My brother provided little intrusion in the matter as it turned out and Isaac continued to do well with expected set backs here and there. My brother also provided another cheerleader for Isaac and Isaac didn’t seem to notice that my brother was horrified and grossed out by the situation.

Only after a week of living with us and watching Isaac learn to go on the potty my brother summed up everything about potty training it took me months to learn. He said when talking with a toddler about going to the potty it is best not to ask “do you have to use the potty?” because he will tell you “no.” It is better to tell him “it is time to use the potty.” And then trick him into it and wear him down when he says “no.”

Most importantly, he confided to me “no means yes and yes means it’s too late.”

From the Diary of Potty Training Nightmares – Part Two

1 Reply

Three weeks into “potty training” and I thought I was going to have a mental break. One of the worst things about being a psychologist is that you can diagnose your own mental shortcomings on a moment-to-moment basis. And then check the DSM-IV for accuracy in your self-diagnosis.

It was the middle of winter and I had realized three things. One: most people potty train in the summer so they can run their naked toddler around outside and not worry about the mess. Two: it is recommended not to potty train with an end date in mind. My end date was six months from when I started, because I was going to have a baby. And that brings me to my third point: don’t potty train when a stressful event is inevitable (example: moving, changing schools, HAVING A BABY!). But like all good overachievers when I hear the words “you can’t…” I immediately want to prove I can. It seemed none of the books I read agreed on anything except those points. I was 0 for 3.

I had given up on my end date. I would be happy if I could get Isaac to even speak friendly about the potty. I was also clueless on how to even start the process of getting him to actually sit on the potty. At first I went with what I knew. I had raised dogs and when a dog looks like it’s about to go you rush it outside. After a while they get the idea. When Isaac would fidget or squirm I would immediately rush him over to his potty chair. He would scream and freak, because I think the first few times I was a bit too eager and scared him. Since I am a good little behaviorist I know when something doesn’t work you have to change what you are doing. I figured if taking him to the potty didn’t work I would bring the potty to him. A few times of him peeing and me rushing his potty chair to catch the pee was exhausting. I also hardly ever got the timing right. Most of the time I was following him around with the potty chair. He would sneeze or pause in playing and I would fumble excitedly with the chair and slide it under him like a baseball runner trying to get past home plate. He would give me a look of confusion and concern that I am sure I will see again when I am old and senile.

I continued to take data on his fluid intake and urine output with baffling results. I never took physics, but even I know what is outside the realm of possibility. If anyone can explain to me how you can pump over 8oz of fluid into a little body and not have any pee come out the other end for over 3 hours I would love to hear the mathematical and anatomical theories on that.

It was evident that Isaac was overwhelmed as well. One night I decided to test my rusting child counseling skills to see how he felt about all this potty training business. Each of his toys used the potty and we clapped and cheered for them. Isaac’s enthusiasm for each successful toy I could tell was lack luster. I could even detect a bit of envy. I then took his favorite stuffed animal. A yellow duck we named Brahms, because when you pull his tail Brahms’ lullaby tune plays out of his butt. I told Brahms he had to use the potty and Brahms said he didn’t want to and kept exclaiming “No!” I then walked Brahms over the potty chair and had him sit on it. I puppeted Brahms yelling and screaming to be left alone in the same fashion I had witnessed a certain toddler doing the last few weeks. Isaac clapped and squealed in delight, gleefully encouraging his toy’s rebellious outbursts. I then had a long talk with Brahms that it was time to use the potty and that we all use it at some point. After much discussion Brahms decided to give the potty one more try and sat on it with pride as he peed lemonade I had hidden in a syringe behind his back. Isaac’s face crumpled and the look of betrayal would have been almost comical if it hadn’t been so revealing of his true feelings. He marched over to the offending toy and yanked him from the potty. He then screamed a loud “No, Brahms, NO!” and promptly ran over the kitchen cupboards and thrust the toy inside and slammed the door.

My husband’s eyes lit up and with his eyebrows raised higher than I have ever seen them whispered to me in his best psychoanalysis impression, “So, Isaac, tell us how you really feel.”

I then tried to smooth things over only to get pulled into a rousing game of “no.”

“Isaac do you want to take a break?”
“No.”
“Isaac, do you want a snack?”
“No!”
“Isaac, let’s go for a bike ride.”
“NO!”

I tried to soak up as much comfort and joy from the game as I could, but I let out a big sigh. I was frustrated too. Neither of us were happy and I rhetorically stated, “You are probably as frustrated with this potty training as I am.”

There was a short pause.

“Uh…yes?” he answered as if trying the word out for the first time. I was hoping the day that word magically appeared in his vocabulary would be cause for celebration after months of hearing its counterpart, but instead I felt empty.

From the Diary of Potty Training Nightmares – Part One

Loving and Leaving: Raising a Guide Dog

1 Reply

It is hard to describe a miracle when you have lived it. Even harder trying to write an emotion that doesn’t exist except in what we cannot see or touch. And while I am stumbling in the dark with explanations I will start from the beginning. Maybe I will find my way as I write.

When I was twelve I wanted one thing more than anything. It wasn’t a brand name pair of jeans. I had no need for material things. It wasn’t to be able to wear make-up. I had no use for vanity. It wasn’t to be popular. I had no desire for others to determine my worth.

I wanted to raise a Guide Dog puppy.

I saw a clipping in a magazine about raising Guide Dog puppies in 4-H and I was like a torpedo in my pursuit to achieve this goal. My sixth grade teacher was the local leader and I think I annoyed her with my million questions a day about the project. My parents took a while to convince, but they eventually caved.

I raised two German Shepherds and would have raised more if college wasn’t looming so closely in the distance. I always promised myself that before I had kids I would raise at least one more. Something didn’t feel complete. An unfinished puzzle with an important piece missing: the one that reveals the picture.

My husband and I got Balina soon after the ink was dry on our mortgage to our first house. I had just finished graduate school and was about to embark in an exciting career in school psychology and counseling. The school I was set to work for had agreed to allow Balina to come to work with me; in fact, they were ecstatic about the idea.

Balina started out as an amazing puppy. She was house trained in a week and learned the majority of her commands early. She did have one weakness, and that was other dogs. If ever a dog could have ADHD one minute and be the model citizen the next, it was she. And I think most people in our Guide Dog group were convinced my husband and I were crazy when we insisted she was the perfect dog outside of our club meetings. In all other ways she was seemingly ordinary.

Except she wasn’t simply ordinary.

I had a secret wish that Balina would fail out of Guide Dog school and Tyler and I could keep her. Most guide dog puppy raisers have this secret wish in the back of their mind. I remember the day I realized she was meant for something bigger than being our devoted pet. It was the day I realized she was special.

I went up to visit my parents and see my cousin’s new baby. Balina was only a few months old. Things started out calm and Balina was doing her normal puppy thing until she started to become agitated. I took her outside because I thought maybe she needed to go “do her business.” Balina didn’t need to go, but seemed to calm a bit while outside. I brought her back in and after a while she started to become frantic. She was jumping up at me. Something she hadn’t done before. She was pulling on her leash whining to get away from me.

I picked her up to take her home and make my speedy exit. As I was making my apologies and trying to sooth a wiggling and squirming dog she jumped straight out of my arms and over to my younger cousin who was laying on the floor. My younger cousin has cerebral palsy; a condition that confines her to a wheel chair and prevents her from verbally communicating. Balina began to lick her face and paw near her. My cousin looked shocked and I quickly jumped in to grab my dog only to have Balina squiggle her way back. I was falling all over myself to apologize. After all this is the Guide Dog puppy raisers equivalent to having your child screaming in a crowded store for candy. My aunt and uncle were extremely understanding about my dog’s misbehavior. Balina was more catlike in her ability to squirm out of my grasp. Each attempt I made only left me more annoyed. I couldn’t get her under control. Suddenly my cousin started to have a seizure, a large and serious grand mal seizure. My cousin had been having trouble with seizures in the last few years and they had become increasing in the frequency and duration. Balina just lay next to her and kept her head close by as my aunt uncle and my other cousin rushed to get my younger cousin’s medicine and make the necessary calls. When the seizure was over Balina was suddenly calm.

I drove home and cried, because I knew then that Balina was too special to keep. She could help people with her gift and I was selfish to try and keep her with me. People always ask: “how can you raise a dog, love it, and then give it up?” I don’t have an answer other than I don’t think I can love something so completely and ever really give it up. Each dog I have raised is a part of me and I have followed each of my dogs to their new owners like a parent would follow a child. Do we expect our children live with us forever? Or do we raise them in hopes they will start a family of their own and achieve the things we have only dreamed of?

The second thing I always hear from questioners is not really a question, but a statement: “I could never give up one of my pets.” My answer to that: I don’t believe it. I think each of us has the ability in us to give up something we love to better the life of someone else. If we didn’t have this ability I wouldn’t want to raise children in a world where this type of altruism didn’t exist. Someday my children or someone I know will be affected by a gift given by someone who gave up a part of herself. It may have been hard for her, emotional, or inconvenient, but she did it and it made a difference even if she didn’t see it.

As the months with Balina moved on she continued to astound me. I worked in a school and my chief duty was to counsel junior high students. Balina always stayed in her corner of my office curled up on her bed until a student would come in that was in extreme need. Usually these were the worst cases I ever had to deal with. Students who had been abused, students who were emotionally lost, and students who turned to drugs or abused their bodies to cope with stress….over and over again Balina would come out of the corner, only for these students, and rest her head on the couch next to him or her. If the student would look over to her without fear she would nudge the students hand and place her head on his or her lap. The student would usually cry and in that moment I knew that he or she was safe.

Balina was an emotional catharsis for not only the students, but parents too. I had a number of concerned parents in my office over the year I worked with Balina at my side. One set of parents I remember well. Their son had just tried to commit suicide the night before. They sat in my office in silence. I usually like to wait for the person in my office to speak first after the introductions are made. This silence was awful and my heart broke for them, because I knew that I didn’t have the words to comfort them and I didn’t have the rapport to reach out and offer a hug or touch: which is what I wanted to do. Balina didn’t have that awkward space people hold between them. She uncurled herself from her mat and trotted calmly over to the mother and father and managed to lay her head in both of their laps. The look in her eyes soaked up all their sadness and I had to look away while both mother and father cried and held Balina. I usually have to remind people to ask permission to pet her before they do. This one time I made an exception. I knew it was coming. This is what the people on the titanic must have felt when all the lifeboats ran out.

When the day came to take Balina in for her final training I was devastated. I didn’t think I could give her up, but she was never really mine. I didn’t know how I could proceed in this next step in my life without her. I had come to depend on her. My husband and I were a week away from having a baby and I needed her in my life. I needed her more right now than anyone else could. It wasn’t fair that she could show me what love was all about and then I had to give her back. We brought her inside and my movements felt wooden and fake as I tried to stay emotionally disconnected. The workers in the kennel offer raisers the option to take their dog to the kennel to say good-bye and I couldn’t do that extra step.

The idea of leaving her in a kennel and closing the door with the intention of never coming back was too hard to fathom. So we said our good-byes and rushed back to the car. I glanced back her direction only to see her confused expression as she jumped up from her kennel where she was placed. She watched me leave and I let out a gasp and clutched my chest as I held back racking sobs. My husband turned to me with red eyes and concern. At the time, I was nine months pregnant after all.

When we got back to the car my husband announced he had to pee before we went on our long ride home and I sat on the curb next to our car holding the empty leash. The leash was brand new when we first got it as a gift from Guide Dogs for the Blind. It was now worn and marked: the perfect symbol of our journey. In life I felt I had given up a lot. I had given up two other dogs and each time got harder. I don’t believe the raisers who say that it gets easier each time you say good-bye. It is only a way we explain the social awkwardness of what we do. After all, who can give up something they love so much?

I looked up and saw a little girl making her way to the office. She stumbled and swayed and felt around for the curb even though she had a person with her holding her hand. The person, her guide, left her for a moment at the door and walked in to the store. The girl stood there briefly and then attempted to enter the building. She walked to the door and felt around. She missed the door handle over and over and soon was way off from the door altogether. I could see the moment she gave up and just stood there in the bushes. She looked defeated.

I wanted to help, but I couldn’t. What could I offer her? I felt I would only embarrass us both if I revealed my presence. I could have done something and I sat there watching, waiting for her true guide to rescue her. After all what difference could I make in one life? I suddenly had a flash of memories with Balina. In all these little interactions Balina had had with people she didn’t have barriers. I needed to tear mine down.

I realized in that moment I was the blind one and Balina had led me. I had the power in me all along and I just needed to believe in it. I had the power to change lives and someday because of volunteers like me that girl would find the door and walk though. It is a humbling experience to realize the difference someone has made on a life. And I realized the difference Balina had made on mine. Every day people do amazing things, people achieve amazing feats, and I was standing by not noticing until now.

Balina became a breeder. Which is considered the highest honor among Guides. This means that she will breed more exemplary dogs like herself. People asked me if I was disappointed that she didn’t become a Guide Dog. I answer simply “If Guide Dogs finds one good dog then that dog becomes a guide. If they see the potential of hundreds of good guides they make that dog a breeder.” I will admit that I was jealous that someone would get to keep her as a pet near the Guide Dog campus (we were too far away to be considered a permanent home for her). I was happy that she was placed in a home with kids who loved and adored her. She is spoiled like we were never allowed to spoil her and her family thinks she is as special as we do.

Here is another awesome story about a working guide (not written by me). The story has appeared in a number of magazines and other media. It is the story of a how a Guide Dog saved the life of his owner during the World Trade Center bombing on September 11th.

http://dogsinthenews.com/issues/0109/articles/010914a.htm

Spelling Wars

1 Reply

It is no secret that I am a horrible speller.

Although I have tried through the years to hide or disguise it I have some of the most atrocious spelling and grammar you will ever come across for a college-educated individual.

I am, in fact, quite bitter about this one personal flaw. I have tried over and over to improve this one aspect, because I would love to be a perfect writer. If I had mad spelling and grammar skills this would elevate me to the next level. I think I can be creative on telling a tale, but when it comes to the mechanics I am flabby and weak. I decided that since I can’t become a great writer under the definition that I have to be a good speller then I will become a word artist! What is that you ask? Well, I made it up, that is what a word artist does: creates art with words and leave spelling and grammar to good editing.

Even with my funny new title I still felt I was missing something.

Throughout my school experience all my friends would try to help me out. It seemed that all my friends were so much more advanced than me in this subject that I was their pet project. When I would pass notes in class to friends they would often send those notes back with their replies and my original note properly spell checked. I would write that I thought so and so was fake in a cute, funny and creative way and they would make a note in the column “I don’t understand your sentence structure”…or “What is your thesis statement?”

This is when I finally realized it is an “us” vs “them” when it comes to writing mechanics. I have rarely come across someone who is indifferent on the subject. There are two personalities in the war: Perfectionist grammar police and Lazy dunce hickabillies. OK, so I just made up the word “hickabillies”, but I think it describes the personality stereotype the best. Making up words is just one of the many attributes of a word artist, such as myself.

Grammar Police are the people who I often find making such silly statements as this: “The author made so many spelling mistakes that I lost all respect for the writer” or “I often find that when I am reading a book or article I find one error in spelling and grammar and it ruins the entire experience for me.” I think it is safe to say the grammar police know who they are and they have already found five errors in my post and are simultaneously writing up an email to alert me to those errors, so as not to subject others to the pain of spoiling their reading experience.

Now on to us dunces and we pretty much know who we are. The first indication you are a hickabily dunce is you are usually asking how to spell very simple words or more often you don’t even know you have made the spelling error. Someone points out that you spelled something wrong or used the wrong form of “there” and you reply “I did?” and that is followed up by a long lesson from (usually) a Grammar Police member, on verb conjugations and linguistic theory. The hickabilly’s eyes glaze over and he/she fails to understand half of the words the Grammar Police use, because we hickabillies are simple folk and the Grammar Police harness a vocabulary that is vast and immeasurable.

Grammar Police are the first ones to the scene in the event of a writing mishap with a pencil in hand. It’s like watching flies swarm to an outhouse and the Grammar Police are the flies….Ok I realize that in that analogy that makes us hickabilys the poop, but bear with me. I like to find out who in the room is a Grammar Police by loudly making a statement like this one: “I think spelling and grammar rules are silly we should return to Old English before they had such silly restrictions” or “I think a few spelling errors in an article are OK as long as the article is well-written and creative in other ways.” Grammar Police in the room can’t help themselves. They will come swarming over to you and commence arguing.

The resulting conversation can only be described as similar to putting Democrats and Republicans in a room and not letting them leave until they agree on Health Care Reform.

In the war of spelling and grammar the English teacher is the atom bomb. They cause mass destruction in their wake, wielding the most feared weapon of all time: the red pen.

They cut and mark up papers and then return them with all the finesse and pride of a cat that just left a barely alive mouse at the doorstep. The majority of the Grammar Police army is housed in the English and Humanities Department. So if you are a hickabilly and want to have peace, avoid these common landmine areas.

Grammar Police seem sympathetic and understanding by the way they support the work of struggling authors. For example, in high school they make you read such torturous and boring stories as Old Man and the Sea and Walden Lake. Grammar Police are the first to jump forward to defend these authors and call their work “masterpieces” and “classics”, but a hickabilly misspells one word in an otherwise flawless essay and we are careless. I’ll tell you what is more careless: an old man goes out to sea, alone, and gets lost out there and rambles on about it for the length of a novel …that, my friends, is careless.

I found myself in college trying to hide the fact that I was a hickabilly and disguise myself as a member of the Grammar Police. My covert operation was an utter failure. I was a top student in most of my classes so the stretch wasn’t too far off. Sadly, hickabillies can’t hide for long. Let it be a lesson to all hickabillies that to Grammar Police our well-taken class notes look like random symbols on a page barely resembling the written language of an intelligent life form. I found this out when a fellow top student decided to try to reference my “notes.” I guess we could roughly call the scribbles my attempt at note taking. I often had teachers accuse me of cheating. My writings in class without the help of editing tools and Grammar Police friends to read over my work were far different than the polished papers and essays I would complete outside of class.

My first year of Graduate school I finally decided to read more to help improve my writing. Considering how much I read now, I really wonder what I used to do to fill up my time (probably staring at a wall drooling, like the dunce hickabily I am…I honestly cant remember). Reading more did help, but I still was not the perfect writer I longed to become.

I wish I had a quick fix for this problem. I have tried it all, including numerous classes that help teach grammar and try hard to memorize words I commonly misspell or misuse and not misspell or misuse them. It will take me years to improve enough in this subject to even be considered adequate, but oddly enough I keep going in for the punishment. My new goal is to try to write more and hope that will improve my writing.

Well this is the point of my article that I contact my Grammar Police husband (I know: I married the enemy), and he explains all my errors and uses big words I pretend to know the meaning to. Then I attempt a re-write and ponder the proper use of numerous vocabulary words he suggested then use a thesauruses to try to make myself sound smarter or laugh over how I can take a word out of sentence or add one in and make it sound like a line from a porno…ah the simple life of a hickabily word artist.

P.S. I spelled Hickabily different ways throughout this story for special dramatic grammatical effect. It was a joke for my Grammar Police friends to sweat over. My hickabilly friends probably didn’t notice.