aintsobad

Didn't die; Just busy; That's All

   I am alive and mostly well in Brock, Texas. I will be back soon with more of the story of Em Finity and the Ninjadilloes. Iw ant to finish this one and get on to something else. I really intend to have a good 2010 and beyond. 

Vicious, Hissing, (Giant) Ninjadilloes Attack Brock, Texas: The Dilloes Charge

   Em Finity stood alone, armed and ready. Her boys were tucked in bed. Their lunch boxes were packed for the next day; PB&J (Peach J) for the older one, with cheetos, a combination that made Em gag but it was what he would eat and what can you do? At least he eats it and drinks his milk. The younger one wanted cold pizza from the night's take-out, which bothered Em, because, well, what would the teacher think when he hauled out left-over pepperoni and not something she made with her own hands? But it was what he wanted, so she wrapped it up in Saran and put a little Smiley-Face Stick-It on the Saran, so they would know she cared.

   The last load of clothes was in the dryer, she would fold those and put them away after she slaughtered the Ninjadilloes, who could not possibly know what awaited them, because Em's husband, Brem, had been out of town for three months and wasn't he supposed to take care of the yard? In her view, that meant he should be there to exterminate varmints and these Eastern-trained, Roid-raging, Burrow-making Road-rats certainly qualified as varmints to her. Why wasn't he here to get rid of the varmints? And the yard needed trimming and the rose bushes were just completely out of control after the heavy recent rains, too, and why should she have to do all that heavy work alone?

   She was supposed to be able to come home and just be a girl, but, no, she had to ManUp and kill Dilloes in her yard. She might break a nail or worse. Really, she had to do her job, take care of the boys, keep the house, feed them as best she could given the fact their taste in food changed from hour to hour and the little one was lactose intolerant or something because he broke out in hives whenever she cooked something healthy for him and the older one laughed and called him "Measly Little Measles Boy." Now, tonight, she had to deal with marauding NInjadilloes as well.

   Also, she could not remember if she had started the dish washer. There might be dirty dishes rotting in her house. She tried to remember if she had spun the little dial on the dish washer as she absently cocked her rifle.

   Come to think of it, she might shoot all the Dilloes and the neighbor's dog while she was at it, the dog who barked at her fence line every night, promptly at one a.m., just when she was settling into sleep after finishing the house, the lunch boxes, the boy's clothes and having eight minutes of quiet time for herself to read her devotional book, which she knew she should take more time with it and write her thoughts like pastor said, but, then, after all that, and with her husband gone and varmints in the yard, did she really want to write her thoughts in a devotional book and show them to pastor?

    Probably not.

   The Dilloes were coming now. They had sent for extra Dilloes, the peasant types, to run ahead of the real warriors and serve as cannon fodder. They were coming in classic Wide-W formation, the cannon fodder Dilloes forming the head of the middle hump of the W, with the real Ninjadilloes, a dozen to a side forming the points of the other loops, twelve to the right and twelve to the left.

    Em had to remind herself the middle Dilloes were more than a nuisance or a distraction. If they got too close they could dance across her feet and gross her out with their little paws. She wished for a moment she had decided to put on her running shoes before she came out, instead of her Fuzzy Bunny slippers, but it was too late, the Dilloes were coming and she had to just run the risk of getting Dilloe-Do on her Fuzzy Bunny slippers.

   Em dropped the first Ninjadilloe on the right prong with a snap shot. He fell back into the pack behind him, breaking their stride and giving her time to drop a flash-buzz into the path of the massed middle of rampaging peasant dilloes. They panicked and turned directly into the path of the Ninjadilloe Dozen on the left prong, ruining their stealthy onslaught. Em fired repeatedly, her unmatched skill as a markswoman taking a deadly toll on shelled attackers. Dilloe blood was everywhere, their hisses filled the night. Some, stunned by the flash-buzz ran into the road where they were hit by Jersey Terwilliger's tow truck coming back in from his late night run. The heavy rains of late had really helped his business because Texans had forgotten how to drive in the rain during the seven year drought and were just all over the road and into the ditch.

   Jersey took out a couple of dozen peasant Dilloes with his tow truck. He never actually noticed because he was laughing so hard at the comedy channel on his satellite radio. He had heard this one before but he always laughed, anyway, because Jeff Foxworthy was telling stories about rednecks and Jersey was pretty sure he knew all of them. Jersey had even done some of the things Jeff was talking about and it was funny, well, because, dang it, it was just so true. Jersey drove on in the dark and the next day washed Dilloe-Do off his tow-truck.

   The noise of battle was horrifying. Shells were squishing as her bullets took their toll. The hissing of the Dilloes gave way to the screams and moans of the wounded. The squeal of tow-truck tires gave way to the crunching sound of shells popping on the pavement. Tiny paws scurried right and left without hope of reaching their target. Em Finity was covered with dust and smoky grime from the stampede and her weaponry. She grimly continued the firing, believing she would soon come to the end of the varmints when, suddenly, she heard her son' s voice above the battle noise.

   "Mommy," her oldest son was yelling. "Daddy's on the phone from Washington. He wants to talk to you right now."

   "Oh, he does, does he?" she wailed at the innocent boy, who would one day grow up to be the absent husband of another poor girl caught in a Ninjadilloe stampede at one a.m., after a full day of work and it was only Tuesday, she had to work three more days and then the weekend, when she would have to spend hours pulling NInjadilloe fragments out of her yard and, she thought, she might save a carcass or two for a special dinner for Brem when he finally came home and he would eat every bight, while she watched with her Glock 9 in hand. He did not have to have ten toes, after all.

    "Mommy," her oldest cried again. "Daddy needs to talk to you before he can go to bed."

   Em shot two more Dilloes and kicked another, down low, really hard and sent him flying across the yard, like a missed field goal in Cowboy Stadium. She was a bit upset.

   "Oh, he does, does he?" she replied. "Tell him I am a little busy right now, Doing His Job."

   The little boy turned so pale she could see his face glow white in the dark. He ran in the house.

   There were more Dilloes coming.

   Em was glad there was no legal limit on how many Dilloes a woman in Fuzzy Bunny slippers could slaughter in her yard in one night.

   She intended to make an evening of it.

Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes Attack Brock, Texas: Night of the Ninjadilloes

      The Ninjadilloes gathered under the decorative cacti, beady 'dilloe eyes set red on the Finity Ranch. Their plan was simple.

   "Tonight we take out the Finity woman," Sensei Takomoto-Dilloe told his Roided friends. "She is the only one between us and total domination of West Parker County. Take her out, we own the fields."

   "Banzai! Banzai!" the massed Ninjadilloes shouted rhythmically. "Let the divine wind blow through us this night."

   In the annals of warfare there are those great moments we all know. The 300 Spartans at Themopalye. The 186 Texicans at the Alamo. The doomed charge of the Light Brigade. All of those, we all have heard.

   There are other signature moments of conflict about which we seldom hear or read. 

   There were the Marines who raised the flag on Iwo and then had to raise it again under fire for the cameras. They were almost forgotten.

   There were the fellows who fought up and down Pork Chop Hill in the Korean Conflict. They fought courageously in America's forgotten war.

   Then, there was my  aunt, Fanny Griswallader,  who stomped through a crowd of crazed women to capture the last Cabbage Patch Kid in the  Waxahachie Wal-Mart during the December '78, Cabbage Patch Campaign. She lost her purse, some skin and all her composure to get her hands on that last CP Kid.

   "There was a 300 pounder in short shorts between me and the doll. Others stopped short at the sight of her. She had tatoos the size of Volkswagens on her back. That woman should not have worn a tube top in public. I would not be frightened. I had my eyes on the prize," Aunt Fanny Griswallader would always tell us children.

   Of course, Aunt Fanny Griswallader was not really my aunt. She was just this kind of crazed woman who showed up at our house whenever we had a big meal, to tell us kids the story, the real story, of the '78 Cabbage Patch Kid Campaign, which could not have happened in Waxahachie in '78,because they did not open their big Wal-Mart there until the late '80's but we did not want to interrupt her, it was such a good story and she was so passionate about the story, too, and besides, she was pretty big and scary herself, with hair growing out the moles on her nose, and we were pretty scared of her and kind of glad she was not really our aunt.    

   I tell her story, her real story, so people can know the horrors of the Toy Campaigns, the Cabbage Patch Campaign of '78 and all the Toy Campaigns since then, like the Buzz Lightyear fiasco of '08, when a large shipment of Buzz dolls arrived for sale with a Woody head, not Buzz on them, like some miniature Frankenstein Monster, Buzz put together by committee, ruining Christmas for hundreds of confused children but, really, that is another story for another day, I just mention it to stress the human toll of the Toy Campaigns, but, really, that is going too far afield, since this is a story about Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes stoked on Armadillo Growth Hormones and not some unbelievable story about mismade, mismatched dolls sold to the trusting parents of boys as "Action Figures."

   Indeed.

   "Fanny Griswallader would not be stopped that day," the retired Wal-Mart store manager, Hank Baskett told the wire service reporters in the aftermath of the Cleanup on Aisle 11. "Dentures were shattered. Purses were everywhere. Some of the women had broken toes and twisted fingers. There were the burning hulks of Electronic Customer Convenience Buggies (ECCB's) all over Aisle Eleven."

   "One little Buggie rider made it out of Aisle Eleven, over to Aisle Twelve, and tried to hide among the home furnishings with her doll. They found her in the area rugs, took her doll, turned over her buggy and just left her there," Hank recalled, shivering.

   Aunt Fanny Griswallader was still shell-shocked, they said, from her dash to the cash register attendant. In those days before the convenience of Self-Checkout, it was not enough to capture the prize. You had to get the doll, run the gauntlet to Check-Out (never more than five lanes open at a time) and hold off the crazed moms, while standing in line behind the bachelor shoppers trying to make time with the cute check out girls, but that is another story for another day. Fanny Griswallader held off all the others, checked out using cash (always appreciated) and made it to her car.

   Hank remembered. He could not easily forget.

   "They were like fiends," he said. "It was the day after Thanksgiving, too, so they were well-fed fiends."

   "Sometimes, at night," he said, "when I close my eyes, I can still hear the burps they made when they rushed me."

   "We never stacked the hot toy items that high again," Hank remembered. He began to cry.

   I handed Hank a hankie. He thanked me, wiped his eyes and blew his nose, like a trumpet, on my hankie.

   Hank offered my hankie back to me.

    I demurred.

   "Once you wipe your nose on it," I told him, "it is pretty much yours."

   Indeed.

   Hank wept.

   Of the notable conflicts of men and ninjadilloes, there is one incident the government has sought to suppress most of all. I learned of it and will offer it to you here. It happened in Brock, Texas, on the Finity Ranch, on the late night of October 5, 2009.

    On that night, alone, unfriended and unafraid, Em Finity put her boys to bed, prayed with them, got them a drink of water, sang them a song, read them a story, took them to the bathroom, told them one more story, sweetly told them to go to sleep, now, right now, this minute, sang them another song, read them one more story, ordered them to stop talking to each other and to her, tucked them in one last time, changed the pajamas of the younger one so he would be wearing the same jammies as his older brother, who had really cool jammies and looked good in them,turned off the light, changed the jammies of the older boy who did not want to wear the same jammies as his little brother, demanded they go to sleep, turned the light back on so they could see she meant it this time, read them one more story, this one about little boys who do not go to sleep after they get on their mom's absolute last nerve (she made this story up out of the whole cloth, though every parent knows this story, though she was holding the book "The Little Engine Who Could" in her hand, but that just wasn't the story she wanted then, you know why if you have children and if you don't you will, you just wait and see if you don't, yes, you will), turned off the light, turned it back on so they could see she was still there and not gone off somewhere, turned off the light, told them she was going right then to call daddy and tell him how they were acting, closed the door, opened the door and told them to get back in bed, closed the door, went in the kitchen, stuck her head in the 'fridge, screamed, and then pulled her hair so hard some of it came out in her hands, wondered how anyone could think a lone mom would be frightened of anything after what she had gone through, loaded her (various) guns and stepped into the night to face the Gray Peril. 

   "Bring it on," she told the Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes. "Mama's here and the skillet is hot."

   (Not exactly a slogan like "Remember the Maine," but, well, you know, it was late, she was tired and you get the idea.)

   The Dilloes, many of whom had fallen asleep waiting for her to come out, massed.

   They charged.

Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes Attack Brock, Texas: The Terror Spreads

   No one can withstand the fury of the Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes. Four to eight pounds of shelled anger come pouncing out of the night. Their tiny pointed heads wrapped in their trademark annotated bandanas, red for the female and blue for the male, they rise up with mighty hisses and fearsome cries.

   "Sheee-ya!" they cry and kick in spry fashion, reticulated shells holding them taut.

   No man and few women can hold their ground when confronted by the nocturnal ravagings of these dauntless creatures of doom. It is of one such brave woman we write today.

   Em Finity is that woman. 

   Left alone to raise two daring lads as her husband was called into foreign service (or just left for awhile, we aren't actually sure), it was Em Finity who faced down the Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes that attacked her homestead, night after night.

   "They tore up my yard," Em sighed to this reporter. "They ate my posies. I cannot describe what they did to my begonias; not in a family blog. They chased our family dog until he went into severe depression."

   "He has not been the same dog since then," Em added.

   The Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes took to coming around each night just after dark. Em told me she could hear them, massing in the decorative cacti just over on the neighbor's field. Em shuddered as she recalled dozens of tiny eyes, evil pointed ears, the devil spawn of the animal world, pumped full of Armadillo Growth Hormones, full of fuzzy roid-rage.

   "I knew I had to take a stand," Em said. "It was them or us."

   "I vowed they would not survive to eat my kids."

   Armed only with her wits, her womanly courage, a repeating rifle, a Glock 9mm, an Uzi, two M-16s, an RPG, a slingshot, a Swiss Army Knife, a flame thrower, two fast runners from the USS Nimitz, a photon torpedo, the prayers of her congregation, the advice of her absent husband and her own professed ability to kill a man (or Ninjadilloe) with her thumb, Em set out late one evening to rid her yard of the Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes. She was Em, armed and angry.

    "I will bear any burden, make every sacrifice, pay any price, to make sure my broken-headed child does not have to have a Ninjadilloe in his room," she said.

   Indeed. The mind boggles.

Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes Attack Brock, Texas: The Beginning

   You will not read this story elsewhere. To prevent widespread panic, official sources will not offer this report. The story you will read is true. A few names have been changed to protect the writer (me). Most of the people mentioned in this story carry firearms on their person, some legally, and they know where I live.

  Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes: The Beginning

   Ten years ago, a truck carrying Armadillo Growth Hormones (AGH) jack-knifed just outside Weatherford, Texas, on Interstate-20. The circumstances of the crash were mysterious; late at night, a one vehicle accident, the lone driver clawed beyond recognition by tiny paws, the truck's cargo missing.

   Local law enforcement, assisted by Super Trooper B. Cooper combed the nearby fields for any clues to the whereabouts of the missing cargo or the outlaw bandits. Not a trace of AGH or the thieves could be found.

   "I remember it like it was yesterday," said STBC. "In fact, maybe it was yesterday. I really get my days mixed up now. What was the question?"

   With such assiduous help, it is obvious the incident was the work of master criminals. How else do you explain the ability of the criminals to vanish into thin air?

   Or did they?

  Citizens of the tiny hamlet of Brock, Texas, near the scene of the crash, began to notice changes in the local eco-system. At first, it was an occasional vanished chihuahua, then a lawn completely demolished by some nocturnal vandal. Finally, entire fields began to crumble in on themselves, undercut by some unexplained, giant tunnels.

   "I felt the earth move under my feet more than once," said NoAnnie Bobbie, long time local resident. "Or, maybe they just my new hip in crooked. I can't be sure."

   Indeed. How did the hip get in crooked? And Who are "They?"

   The mystery deepens.

Next Post: VH (G) Ninjadilloes Attack

Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes Attack Brock, Texas

Writer's Note: For the next few days, the Editorial Staff of Aintsobad (Me, Myself and I) will attempt to tell you a story. The story itself is true. Official sources suppress these facts to prevent wide-spread panic among the population. You will not hear or read this story from any other source.

    I say again, as in the title of this introductory piece, to wit, Vicious, Hissing (Giant) Ninjadilloes inhabit the fields around Brock Texas. Many of the citizens have seen them from a distance. A few have suffered heinous attacks from the leprous, shelled quadrupeds. Fewer still, under attack,  have escaped unscathed.

   Aintsobad shares this story of courage, fortitude and sheer dancing-in-place-squealing-like-a-girl-even-though-you-are-armed-to-the-teeth-terror so that you, our readers, may know of this clear and present danger to your own safety. We urge you to protect your families, your livestock and your homes from these huge, hissing menaces. They are here, they are real, they are Ninjadilloes. Be warned.

   The story you will read is true. Some names have been changed to protect poor shots among the citizenry.

In Defense of It All: Day Five

   Save this for after Christmas.

   Totally, completely, eschew the fellow who tells you his religious antics come because he is a "fool for Christ's sake." The odds are a he is a fool on his own and he blames the wrong Fellow.

   Ignore the religious fellow who begins to tell you he cannot take a chance on contemplative Christianity (or any other faith) because it is "not what the people want." He is looking to the wrong throne for his direction. The real one will not put up with this forever.

   Resist the corporate religionist who tells you he must follow a particular course because to do otherwise would be bad for his organization. If he must perform as a non-Christian because of his work, he is in danger of his soul, not just the end of some corporation.

   Understand, the man who is most alive is that one who wills to learn and wants to create.

   The God who gives grace to save and keep gives grace to live and die. The various kinds of grace differ only according to felt need. Bill Wright told me, after he came home from his radiation and chemotherapy, there were quarantine signs all around him because the saving-poisons (which, apparently, failed) damaged his immune system. The first thing he did was demand the Stay Away signs be removed. He wanted people to come see him so they could start their grieving and enter healing.

   Grace is the spring of which courage is the stream. If you see courage, grace is around somewhere close.

   If you are a preacher of any kind, do some study on the word "agapatoi," or "beloved ones." See if you can preach on it every Sunday morning for a month. At the end of your study and application, see if you think you are part of the beloved, and why. Are you one of them (am I one of them?)? Or are we just insightful commentators on what might be love applied to some others?

   Depressiveness may be the simple result of misfiring neuro-transmitters, but I somehow doubt it. Repentance, confession, soul-searching; all these actions seem to help the crestfallen soul.

   After Christmas, I will have some suggestions about the future of cooperative ministry. Cooperative ministry does not mean much if you do not have an honest heart to take you from place to place.

In Defense of It All: Day Four, Finally

   I intended to put this post up on Monday. Then Bill Wright called me, all gallantry and faith, while suffering from cancer in his bones, and that was the end of the day for me. For those (their name is Legion) who believe I will never suffer heart failure because I lack that organ, let me tell you my empty cardiac chamber reverberated with solemn prayers from then to now. 

    Here is this post, a day late and I miss my own deadline.

In Defense of It All: Day Four, Finally

   If few attend the meetings, fewer give the money and if, as it seems, the (recently held) traditional religious corporations seem in decline, is this a good time to do away with them and their kind? I freely admit this is an incendiary (and wordy) question to begin a post in defense of cooperative ministrymissions, but it accurately reflects the thoughts of people who are voting for just such a measure, right now, with foot and purse.

   We could take a few lines to describe the events leading up to the death knell of the old structures, but it is Christmas, most nearly, and I would rather be the Scrooge of the morning, not the Ebenezer of the late evening. So, this is a post about why we will have cooperative ministries in the years ahead, not why the old ones will become the Ghosts of Conventions Past.

   We will cooperate. We will do so institutionally, even corporately, because the world is so small any more. The world is small, flat and getting more smaller and flatter. While no one cares much about what happens in the old structures any longer, there is a real concern in many hearts about how we will concentrate the power we still hold.

   The great power of cooperative missions (not the corporate mess set in place to protect itself and gobble resources) is its intent and ability to concentrate power. Texas did not win the Second World War, no more than America won the war alone. The war was won by the Allies over the Axis, saving Western civilization when it was thought Western civilization was worth saving. 

   Texas baptists of whatever stripe will not save the world, nor contribute overmuch to its salvation. Cooperative ministry requires each man do his best, fulfill his calling and finish his race, but cooperative ministry succeeds or fails on its ability to concentrate all those best efforts on the issues at hand.

   The current miserable failure of (recently accepted) religious institutions is directly tied to their inability to concentrate power where it is needed. Indeed, the present power-elite lack the prescience to call for sacrifice quite because they seem unable to think beyond their comfortable seats. 

   The person in the pew will sacrifice for ministry. Few will drive across the state just to be counted. Fewer still will write a check so some pusillanimous denominational nabob can sit enthroned.

   We will not have what we have had because what we have had is no longer worth the holding. We will have cooperative ministry, even in some kind of convention apparatus because, used correctly, corporate Christianity can help us focus on needs on the other side of (our own) Main Street.

   We will not have what we have had because what we have had has demonstrated sufficiently its insufficiency; morally, professionally, pastorally, prophetically. We will have cooperative ministry, even in some kind of denominational apparatus, because, when one can be had that is not morally compromised, a central office can meet its obligation to appeal to our highest calling. We need no more poorly produced videos or mail order gospels. There is something better out there for us.

   We will not have what we have had because what we have had has taken its power and run amok. We will have cooperative ministry because, when operating benevolently, cooperative ministries (even of a corporate nature) function to constrain power. An incompetent bully may strut his stuff for awhile but he is a long-term loser and a cooperative ministry is more likely to sniff out degradation better than some one man totalitarian state. 

   I suggest the common failure of the recently deceased para-church organizations and the coming deaths of others is not because they do not have power but because they use power poorly. People will come to watch a fight but no one actually jumps into the ring to join it. You could get hurt in there. 

    After one side or the other is beaten down to defeat, well wishers jump in for a place with the champion. They tend to go away when he loses his punch and, so, his place. What we had has lost its punch and its place. There is less need for balance when our equilibrium only holds us on a thin wire between two equally deep chasms. The fall will kill you, either way.

   No, we need reform. Reform, in the style of reformation. Reform, morally and in competence in "high" office. Reform, not half way measures.

Bill Wright, Again

   Bill Wright called me this morning. We talked for over a half hour. He is wracked with disease but free of pain. His doctors tell him he should be in dreadful pain but Bill convinced me he feels no pain at all. He attributes this to the large number of people praying for him. It is God's grace for living in which we live. It is God's grace for dying in which we die.

   Lift up Bill today. I was deeply moved by our conversation.

One Tough Decade: Fooled and fooled and fooled again. No More.

   The first decade of this century, now about to expire (the decade, not the century; one could hope) is a tough one to take. From Enron to the Balloon Boy to Tiger Woods (a family man; lots of families, apparently) to Ted Haggard (homosexuality is always sin; except when he does it; then it is sin, but not really and he is a sinner, but not actually) to any number of political lapses, the case for truth is never more in doubt. 

   Do the organizations you most closely associate with know your needs and care to meet them? Can you have confidence in the leadership of the organizations? Trust is hard to build and almost impossible to rebuild. I entered this decade  with some small faith in two organizations; one no longer exists and the other did so poorly it changed its name and then appointed a committee (actually, the same old committee with the same old faces; look for exciting news soon) to decide why no one comes to see it any more.

   There are no smart business guys anymore. All of them lost a zillion dollars last year. Some of them got caught with their hands in the cookie jar (Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff) but all of them lost a bucket of bucks. 

   The world is warming dangerously, except it is actually colder and this is because of global warming. Or Al Gore.

   We rushed into Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction. Four thousand American lives later, we still cannot find them, but they may be in Iran. More later.

   Somebody needs to tell some truth, if not the truth, at least as much of the truth as they know.

   I no longer trust corporate Christians. They are Christians when it suits, until they suddenly need to be corporate, then the suits come out. They are what they need to be at the moment but I just can't trust someone(s) who can be so fervently different, with equal passion for each persona, from act to act.

   Tomorrow, if allowed, I am going to start outlining how we take this thing back over. It is time for the cavalry to come riding over the hill, banners waving, trumpets blaring, sabers shining in the sun.