It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the space shuttle!

Well, since I picked on my youngest brother here after he drank fly juice, I suppose it's only fair to share some love with my eldest brother as well. So, allow me to share with you the story of the Space Shuttle and its legal sale in the state of Missouri:

It's Wednesday night and the casino down the street from the farm is having crab-legs on the buffet. Since my daddy has never met a crustacean he doesn't like and since Aaron and I were wanting to see the casino, we decided to go for dinner. On the way there I was sitting up front chatting with dad while my poor husband suffered in the back seat with my brothers. As daddy and I were discussing plans for the 4th we hear my brother pipe up from the back: "Oh yeah! Hey dad! What happened with all those fireworks we bought?"

My dad simply answered with "Check your pronoun, 'bro'. I don't think *we* bought any!"

My genius brother missed the point that he should have used "you" in place of "we" and continued to argue that yes, they really had all bought fireworks. In an effort to further clarify this point, I asked him, "'Brother'? Which of all these fireworks did you personally buy?"

His answer, "You know, the ones that make loud noise, go up in the air, then explode!" I deadpanned back, "Oh? You mean the space shuttle?" Continuing in his pattern of missing the point, he answered, "Yeah, that one! That's the one I bought!"

It took him until half-way through dinner to figure out why we were all laughing. The worst part? Four hours driving through the state of Missouri on the way home and I forgot to stop off at a fireworks stand to purchase a shuttle all my own.

Fly Goo

In a wonderful example of object lessons:

After letting the dogs in and out this morning, we had a few flies flitting about the kitchen. My youngest brother decided to go after them with the flyswatter. As he was smashing down the swatter with all his strength, my step-mother was telling him that it was not required to swing that hard, and warning him that he might damage something. Just as he opened his mouth to ask, Why?", he hit a fly. Because he was swinging so hard, the bug exploded; spraying into his open mouth and all over his glasses. My step-mother's response (after she wiped away the tears and could stop laughing): Do you still need me to answer that?