Glitter, a Mouse, a Gun and a Bedroom Slipper

I have no idea if this story is going to be as funny to those of you who are not in my family, but as promised, here is our story.

This is really 3 stories in one. Every Christmas at the Railroad Bed (the name of the property since it is literally an old RR bed) has a lot of great memories, but this one was by far the funniest! I don’t remember exactly what year this story took place, but I’m guessing Mir and Stephen were probably in early high school or late middle school which would put Jonathan and me in early middle school.

A Little Background Info...

The House

My dad was “reared” (don’t you hate when people say that?!) in Adrian, GA. *Skip a lot of years* My dad’s oldest sister and her husband were able to buy that house along with some land surrounding it and fix it up. During my childhood my siblings and I stayed there at Christmas time with another of my dad’s sisters and her husband (there were 10 kids in my dad’s family!) and their children. I’m not exactly sure how my parents got out of staying there with us. I’m sure they used some lame excuse about there not being enough room or something like that. Regardless of their excuses, we loved staying there with Aunt Lynn and Uncle Leon since they went to bed relatively early and let us stay up as late as we wanted. With the renovations, the house had two bedrooms and living room/kitchen combo. The house was heated using a wood burning stove. Aunt Lynn and Uncle Leon slept in one room and the rest of us crashed wherever we could – beds, couch, floor.

The Mystery

All my life I have heard about “The Lady in White”. She lives on the land surrounding that house. I personally have never seen her, but my uncle and several cousins swear that they have. Truth or not, I’m not sure, but I can tell you I was pretty afraid of her when I was little. Every Christmas we played War. I don’t know why we called it that. It was basically Hide and Go Seek in the Dark. Because the house is in the middle of nowhere, you could literally lie in the field uncovered and the “seekers” could not see you until they were right up on you. This made for a fun game, but also a lot of looking over your shoulder for The Lady in White.

The Rivalry

My brother and my cousin Jonathan acted more like brothers than cousins in some aspects – mainly the arguing, pestering, and fighting. Stephen is about 2 years older than Jonathan. Jonathan loved to aggravate Stephen, mainly because Stephen was easy to set off. On most days, they pestered the fool out of each other until the fighting began.

The Story

This particular Christmas story started like any other year. We were all piled on the sofa beds and chairs in the living room talking and having a good ole time when a MOUSE ran through the light right above the couch!! The lights in the living room are the long fluorescent ones, and he ran all the way across from one side to the other. This sent Mir and Holley flying across the room, jumping over furniture, and screaming! After the shock of seeing the mouse wore off, and we realized he had to be somewhere in the attic, everyone calmed down and returned back to normal (at least what is normal to us!).

Later that same the night Jonathan put a pecan on top of the wood stove. I don’t know the thought process that went on in his brain after that, but he grabbed the nut (now red because of the heat) and dropped it down the back of Stephen’s shirt. As you can imagine, this made Stephen MAD!! Jonathan (knowing that look in Stephen’s eye from previous experience) took off running. Stephen quickly followed. Now keep in mind, we are in a tiny house. They ran laps around and around the kitchen table. On one of the laps Stephen picked up one of Aunt Lynn’s slippers and threw it at Jonathan. As luck would have it, it smacked right down on the center of Jonathan’s back. Jonathan stopped and grabbed the BB gun (like a rifle) that was right beside him. Jonathan pointed the thing straight at Stephen threatening to shoot him. Holley (Jonathan’s sister), Mir, and I started hollering at Jonathan to put the gun down. Stephen is yelling, daring Jonathan to shoot him. Aunt Lynn and Uncle Leon were fast asleep in the other room. After a minute or so of the standoff, Jonathan put the gun down and we convinced them both to chill out in separate parts of the room.

Stephen decided to make a pallet beside the door and went to sleep. Jonathan must have had a memory lapse, because he thought it would be funny to put that hot nut in Stephen’s bed. Stephen woke up fighting mad apparently covered in glitter. He started yelling immediately and then went on a rampage about us having poured glitter all over him. We tried to calm him down and explain that no one knew about the glitter, but he wasn't having any of that. Not only was he mad, but he was tired too. That is a dangerous combo for anyone, especially Stephen. He yelled for a while then rolled back over and went on back to sleep.

To this day I have no idea how the glitter got there. Anyone that knows me knows that I had absolutely nothing to do with a prank involving glitter!! The only explanation that I have to offer is it had to be the Lady in White!!