Amy Newmark - Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Crazy Family: 101 Stories about the Wacky, Lovable People in Our Lives

Chicken Soup for the Soul: My Crazy Family

101 Stories about the Wacky, Lovable People in Our Lives Amy Newmark

Published by Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC www.chickensoup.com

Copyright 2018 by Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

CSS, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and its Logo and Marks are trademarks of Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the many publishers and individuals who granted Chicken Soup for the Soul permission to reprint the cited material.

Front cover photos: Old man DJ courtesy of iStockphoto.com/dubassy (dubassy), cleaning woman courtesy of iStockphoto.com/SrdicPhoto (SrdicPhoto), woman with hat courtesy of iStockphoto.com/MilicaStankovic (MilicaStankovic) and yoga guy courtesy of iStockphoto.com/Yuri_Arcurs (Yuri_Arcurs)

Back cover and Interior artwork courtesy of iStockphoto.com/Ann_Mei(Ann_Mei) Photo of Amy Newmark courtesy of Susan Morrow at SwickPix

Cover and Interior by Daniel Zaccari

Distributed to the booktrade by Simon & Schuster. SAN: 200-2442

Publishers Cataloging-In-Publication Data

(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Names: Newmark, Amy, compiler.

Title: Chicken soup for the soul : my crazy family : 101 stories about the wacky, lovable people in our lives / [compiled by] Amy Newmark.

Other Titles: My crazy family : 101 stories about the wacky, lovable people in our lives

Description: [Cos Cob, Connecticut] : Chicken Soup for the Soul, LLC, [2018]

Identifiers: ISBN 9781611599770 (print) | ISBN 9781611592771 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Families--Literary collections. | Families--Anecdotes. | LCGFT: Anecdotes.

Classification: LCC HQ734 .C45 2018 (print) | LCC HQ734 (ebook) | DDC 306.85--dc23

Library of Congress Control Number 2018933622

Changing lives one story at a time

www.chickensoup.com

Things arent often what they appear to be at first blush. But embarrassment is.

~Jarod Kintz

M om, look at this. My daughter opened her hand, exposing a tiny ball of gray fur. I found it on the road sitting beside its dead mother. When I went to walk away, it ran up my leg and across my arm into my hand. Her face was a study of wonderment and delight. Although it was a heartwarming incident, there was the immediate question of what to do with a baby squirrel.

Our home had seen its share of babies over the years. We had five children, a Persian cat, a Samoyed dog, two chickens and a rabbit all thriving under one roof.

Our youngest child was six months old, so I always had a small emergency bottle of formula in the fridge. We retrieved the bottle for the squirrel and warmed it a little in the microwave. The children gathered close to see what would happen. That fuzzy, little thing curled up on his back, clutched the nipple with both paws and sucked it dry. Amazing! Before I could warn the kids, they had already named him and made him a bed in a shoebox. Our fate was sealed, and Peanuts became a new member of the family.

For some reason, Peanuts liked to sleep in warm, dark places. Many times, we would be looking for him everywhere, and then see a slight bulge under the covers on our waterbed where he had snuggled down for the night. The other place he particularly loved to be was in my housecoat pocket. That way, he could run up my arm and sit on my head to watch the activity in our busy household.

With five kids, mornings were filled with changing diapers, eating breakfast, doing hair and packing lunches. The kids often left for school before I was out of my housecoat, and this provided Peanuts with a few hours of entertainment, as he ventured in and out of my pocket to check out what we were doing.

One particular morning, we had a new van being delivered. A delivery service dropped off the new van with the keys and left. It was lovely dark red with a delightfully clean interior. In the middle of morning mayhem and still in my housecoat, I decided to try out the new car. Grabbing the keys, Peanuts and I headed to the garage. No matter how I tried to get those keys in the ignition, they would not go. I was frustrated and feeling short on patience. Marching back to the kitchen, I snatched up the phone and dialed the dealership. Some unfortunate soul answered as I explained that the wrong keys had been dropped off. I asked if someone could please bring the right ones immediately.

I must have sounded a little cranky as, minutes later, the doorbell rang. Opening the door to a gentleman, I was about to explain the situation again when Peanuts decided to see what caused the commotion. He scooted out of my pocket and nimbly climbed to his position on top of my head. Unlike other times, however, he managed to get perched in the wrong direction. With his head facing backwards, his tail dangled over my face, like a raccoon hat on backwards.

I was in the middle of a serious discussion with the man from the dealership and, without thinking, I pulled the squirrel from my head and stuffed him in my pocket. Within seconds, Peanuts had scampered back up to his lookout perch, backwards once again. Continuing my diatribe as to how they had left me the wrong keys, it just seemed easier at this point to hold the tail to the side and continue the conversation.

I realized mid-sentence that the man was no longer looking at me. His eyes were wide and fixated on the squirrel. He wasnt listening to me at all and probably hadnt heard a word Id said. Had this man never seen a squirrel before? Quickly, I whisked the squirrel off my head and stuffed him in my pocket again.

Come with me, I told the man, and turned to lead the way to the garage. We marched past the passel of kids eating breakfast in various stages of dress, the toddler in the Tupperware cupboard, the dog cleaning the cats ears, and the piles of laundry waiting to be done, and then sidestepped the lunchboxes and rain boots lined up in the back hall. We still had to climb over a few bikes in the garage before standing in front of the new vehicle.

As I dangled the keys in front of him, the mans eyes slowly slid from the squirming little mass in my pocket to the key ring. He stared for a moment or two, and I saw his mouth twitch in a peculiar way.

Madam, he said, these arent the keys we brought. I think those must be the ones to your old van.

I looked at them again, realizing my error. By now, the squirrel had scrambled back on my head, at least sitting in the right direction, and peering with beady little eyes at the man from the dealership.

Oh, my, I stammered. Im terribly sorry. I dont know how I could have made that mistake.

His glance took in my worn housecoat, the squirrel perched on my head, the dangling wrong keys, and my embarrassment. He smiled with every inch of his face and mumbled something about not worrying; it happened all the time. We found the new keys stuffed in a drawer. Within minutes, he was in his car and speeding away.