Tag Archives: travel

September 25, 2026 · 6:38 am

Insecure Security

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have done quite a bit of traveling in my life, mostly with Roy. I very much enjoy all the places we go (well, maybe not the campgrounds) but I will admit there is one thing I will not miss when my traveling days are through: security checks. Whether it’s into a building or across a border, I admit those uniforms and badges make me nervous.

Now I want to make it clear that I am not smuggling guns or drugs (although I think my picture is on the Crest wanted posters for trying to smuggle an illegally large tube of toothpaste through airport security) but there is something about security points that bring out the worst in me.

I’m a nervous joker. When I am uneasy, I make jokes at the worst possible times—like in doctor’s offices or during a job interview. I’m uncomfortable, so I make a remark about an embarrassing rash or I talk to a prospective employer about how I might have left my last job due to an unfortunate shortage in my cash box at the end of the day. They are jokes and the people I make them to usually realize they’re jokes, but it tends to make them wonder about me.

But the worst is when I am in a security line and they are all looking at me. I try hard not to make jokes about bombs in my handbag and I smile and hope I don’t look like the sort of person who would be smuggling a kilo of cocaine in my sock. But I am nervous nonetheless.

My first time going through JFK Airport in New York City, my briefcase caused quite a stir. It was my dreamed-of trip to New York and I had really gone heavy on the souvenirs. As my briefcase went through their scanner, it set off alarms all over the place, and suddenly, there were armed guards standing over me calmly demanding that I open the briefcase. I was so rattled, I couldn’t unlock it! At last, frantically sweating bullets, I got the locks undone and opened the lid to reveal…my souvenir mugs. They put their guns back in the holsters and I put my heart back into my chest and we all went our merry ways. No jokes necessary.

I feel bad for border guards. They have to determine within a few questions and observations if you are a simple tourist looking for a good time or whether you just look  like a simple tourist so you can smuggle drugs, weapons and assorted terrorists into the country. On our recent trip to Canada, the border guard made the decision to search our trunk. I don’t know what motivated him to do this, but what he got was a trunk full of my hand-washed underwear, laid out in the trunk to dry. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I know he did not linger back there!

And then of course, there is the time I unintentionally propositioned a very nice border guard in Ireland. Last year I was in an airport in Dublin and as I went through security, I nearly hanged myself trying to take off my jacket without removing my shoulder bag first.

“One thing at a time, love,” said the security guard in a heavy Irish lilt.

Flustered by the line, the foreign system and his very Irish voice reminding me I was far from home, I answered, “Thanks! What else do you want me to take off?”

Now, before your mind goes to the gutter, I was actually thinking about things like shoes, but I will admit that the astonished look on the guard’s face was rather memorable. And it was my only time (I hope) that I will accidentally proposition a security guard.

I should have just made the joke about the bomb in my handbag, right?

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September 19, 2026 · 9:39 pm

My Life in the Wild

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have never made a secret of the fact that I don’t care for camping. Despite the growing number of campgrounds in the world, I will still be bucking the trend and avoiding the great outdoors.

As a child, I was shielded from camping. My parents, being sane and sensible, didn’t take us out onto the prairie and set up a tent. They had an annoying thing about picnics—complete with bugs, but there was no overnight wildlife endurance test and I will be forever grateful for this. It started my life off right.

I never gave it any thought, either, until the Girl Scout troop I belonged to took us on a camping trip. When I say that the campground was primitive, I mean it lacked cabins, roads, bug spray and toilets. On the first night of the campout, I left my feeble little tent in the middle of the night. Looking up, I saw canvas bags tied into the trees.

“What’s in those,” I asked the leader.

“Our food,” was her sleepy reply.

“Why is it up there? What if I wanted a snack?” I really didn’t get it.

“It’s up there so it doesn’t attract wolves or bears or something,” she replied. “What are you doing up?”

“I need to use the bathroom, where is it?”

“Just go over and squat among those bushes over there,” she replied, pointing some distance. “And watch out for snakes.” Snakes????!!!!

I spent the rest of the night huddled in a tent, that suddenly seemed very flimsy and smacked everything that moved, including my tentmate, with my shoe, praying that the sudden movement didn’t cause me to lose control of my very full bladder!

Naturally, when I grew up, I looked for a mate who felt the same way about camping that I did. We were neglectful parents. We didn’t take our children out into the wild and force them to comingle with bears and bobcats and alligators. (Okay, I know we don’t have alligators around here, but it sounds dramatic.)

I remember a night when we bought a little bundle of wood for a big bundle of cash and decided to camp with our small children, just using the pickup we were traveling in. We didn’t plan for this excursion, and if I recall, we couldn’t get a fire lit (Roy wasn’t in Boy Scouts at all) and we ended up eating at a McDonald’s a few miles from the camp. Thankfully, they didn’t hang our food in the trees!

Tracie was small enough that we had a portable bed for her, but Stefanie, who was the right length, refused to sleep in the pickup cab. That meant, I was stuck, huddled up with my feet caught in the door compartment on one end, while I was nose-to-wheel with the steering wheel on the other. I spent the night listening to the couple next door have a major squabble and got up in the morning with a crick in my neck and a huge chip on my shoulder.

With all of these experiences, it seems inevitable that every family reunion centers around camping. Now, camping for most is not what it was in MY day. Now, they have huge pickups hauling campers which are equipped with everything but a Jacuzzi and a butler to make and serve the meals!

I still don’t want to camp. If I vacation, I sleep in reasonably comfortable beds, enclosed within four solid walls. I have all of my meals prepared and served to me. And my idea of roughing it is if the bed is queen-sized instead of king!

So when we have family reunions—and I like to attend—I have but one question: Where is the nearest Holiday Inn? Take that, all you ugly snakes out there!

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September 3, 2026 · 2:14 am

Even Pilate washed his hands

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Yes, yes, I know, Pilate was symbolically washing his hands of Jesus, but the Bible does say he washed his hands. And that gives me a good entry into the topic of my column this week; washing hands.

On a road trip recently, I was reminded of one of my pet peeves and that is people who don’t wash their hands—particularly, people who are using the public bathroom—you know, where there are signs everywhere that say, “Please wash your hands”?

I know I should be minding my own business in there, but it always raises my blood pressure when I hear someone else in a public bathroom who flushes the toilet and leaves the bathroom without washing their hands. Even worse, is the person who leaves the bathroom without flushing the toilet or washing their hands! Then of course, they proceed to touch everything I need to touch, starting with the bathroom door!

This happened on the road last week. I was in the bathroom stall, minding my own business, when the person next to me got up, with much audible sighing and mumbling, and left the stall and the bathroom. No comforting sounds of a flushed toilet and no comforting whoosh of water in the sink!

I finished, flushed my toilet, flushed the nasty one in the next stall and then scrubbed my hands at the sink. When I left the bathroom, having used the tail of my shirt to open the door, I refrained from standing in the dining area and bellowing, “All right, who is the farm animal who not only did not flush the toilet, but also left without benefit of soap and water on their hands?”

I did, however, after having gone through the buffet line, drown my hands with a pocket-sized Purel—one for each hand. One can never be too careful!

One of the first responsibilities I had as a child was to flush the toilet. Then, when I got old enough not to flood the bathroom with my efforts, I was left to wash my hands on my own. So I, and most people know what you are supposed to do. And we are so lucky.

Think about it: back in the bad old days, they didn’t have the option of flushing the toilet. They just sat on the bench and enjoyed the remains left by everyone else for the last few years. They also didn’t have toilet paper, so the outdated Sears Catalog did its outgoing duty, thus making their hands even more dingy. After that, you wiped your nose on your sleeve and went off to play, blissfully unaware of the germ cloud following you.

That cannot excuse the people today. I see modern bathroom fixtures being put into people’s homes. They should make flushing the toilet and washing your hands a pleasure.

Have I ever, in my own home, left the bathroom without washing my hands? Of course, because the phone and the doorbell always go off while I’m in there. However, I already know what bacterial communities are thriving in my own personal bathroom. And I know enough not to touch anyone until I have found some soap. It also explains my pathological need to constantly Lysol the phone receiver!

However, having said that, I am meticulous about washing up after I use the public bathroom. As for flushing, that probably explains why so many places are installing self-flushing toilets. Those do scare me a little; frequently they go off while I am still seated, making me wonder if I’m going to go down as well! But they do solve one problem.

Now, if they could install a device that blocks the door and repeats over and over, “No exit, without hands washed,” I would be happy. I imagine some people would sue for kidnapping, but washing their hands would be the only ransom they had to pay.

So, my sad little rant about washing hands now ends. But I do find it a little ironic that I am using Pilate as the poster child for washing hands!

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August 6, 2026 · 12:51 am

Letting It Hang

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

My husband and I are in agreement on a great many things. That probably explains why we are still married. However, I will admit that we are a mixed marriage on a small number of issues and this month I have been reminded of one of them. If Shakespeare were to state the problem, he would say, “To hang, or not to hang, that is the question.”

No, I’m not talking about an execution; I’m talking about the laundry. Roy insists that the smart and economic thing to do is to hang clothes outside to dry. I, on the other hand, from a very young age in Sunday school, have always believed that if God intends us to hang clothes out on the line to dry, He would not have invented the dryer! That is such a clear sign from above that laundry lines are evil!

It is obvious to me on several levels that Roy did not grow up hanging out the laundry. He had two sisters and a hard-working mother and laundry is clearly “women’s work.” That means he never had the pleasure of standing out at the laundry line trying to wrestle a sheet over that flimsy string in high wind. I still remember the time my father looked at the laundry after I had finished slapping on the clothes pins and remarked, “It looks like it was hung by an indifferent drunk.” He was half right: I was definitely indifferent!

The only time I remember getting in trouble in elementary school was when we were reading The Long Winter. When they described laundry day, I blurted out, “What? Are they crazy?” The teacher pursed her lips disapprovingly and told me that further observations on my part would not be necessary; in that way teachers have of letting you know that the next “observation” will be shared with your parents.

I shut up that day, but seriously, those people took clothes outside in the middle of a blizzard-after-blizzard-winter and hung them up in the freezing cold! Then, they brought in the frozen remains and hung them behind the stove so they could both thaw and then dry! Am I the only one that thinks this does not make sense? Just let me sit in the cold shed and twist hay into burning sticks—at least that activity had a useful purpose!

Now, I should state here that when Roy insists the laundry be hung outside, he is willing to do the hanging. But I am not willing to deal with the results. Let’s start with the towels. I don’t care how much the wind is blowing, towels always come off the clothesline with all the softness of a pan scraper! I went to take a shower the other day and I had to go down four levels to hit a towel that I had washed and put in the dryer.

I think we may have reached an agreement on towels, however. Even he can’t deny that a towel dried outside has all the desired textural comfort of sand in your shoes. I see that in his last round of laundry, the towels actually made it to the dryer and not the line.

And so we go on to the rest of the clothes. Now, on a personal note, I like my neighbors far too well to subject them to the sight of my bedraggled undergarments hanging on the line like dispirited and grungy flags. On top of which, we have the same texture issue. My sister used to dry them for ten minutes in the dryer and then hang them out. That might have taken care of the texture issue, but it didn’t take care of the “I’m way too lazy to do that much work” issue!

And that leaves my outer clothes. I will never be a snappy dresser, and I generally wear my clothes until they are pretty much falling off. But when Roy puts them on the clothesline, they come back with all the smoothness of an accordion. I am then left with two choices. I can either wear them as is and hope nobody notices, or I can iron them. Now, we all know that I am not going to go through the “sprinkle clean clothes lightly, roll them up and put them in the refrigerator (usually until they’ve picked up refrigerator odor) and then take them out and IRON them!” No thank you, I’ll just tell everyone the accordion look is in!

Until I am back to full strength from my knee surgery, Roy is in charge of the laundry, so the question of whether to hang the clothes or to conveniently throw them into the dryer which is right there, will continue to plague us. But nothing will ever change Roy’s mind that it’s more practical to hang clothes out, nor change my mind that laundry lines were meant to be seen and not used, so I guess we will remain a mixed marriage on this issue!

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July 31, 2026 · 6:12 am

Boiled Fly, Anyone?

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Now, I know that every summer, we are inundated with flies and every summer I whine about hating them. So since it’s summer and there are flies, this column should come as no surprise to anyone!

Most of the time, I’m just irritated by their ability to annoy. They fly in my face, crawl up my clean windows and buzz when I’m trying to sleep at night. The one thing I have not written about, however, is their threat to my food supply. But this week, they even crossed that line.

I was preparing one of my favorite meals which requires a pot of boiling water to cook the pasta pockets in. I made the pockets, got the water boiling and then, took off the pan lid. I walked back to the counter, grabbed a pocket and came back to the uncovered boiling water. I threw in the pocket and then noticed there was something black on it. That made no sense! There was nothing black on the pockets!

That’s right, you guessed it. It was a fly. Now, I’m fairly certain that there was no fly on the pocket when I picked it up, so the only explanation is that the fly willingly jumped into a boiling pan of water! Isn’t that the way they used to execute people in the Dark Ages?

A full pan of boiling water and a pasta pocket that took some considerable work to make: what to do? Should I chuck the whole works and start again, or fish out the fly and pretend it never happened? Now, I’m gonna be honest; a lot of me wanted to do the second thing, but I have not yet been reduced to eating fly residue, and there was no way to be sure that Roy would be the one who got the fly-flavored pocket, so I chucked the whole thing and started again!

I try to be careful when I have food around  and it’s fly season. I cover things on the counter and try to keep the area as fly-free as possible. But those buggers have not gotten the memo that they are not welcome, and they are not particularly fussy about what they will eat.

Especially is it difficult to keep them out of drinks. I think liquid must be the fly equivalent of the Viking Valhalla, because they jump into every liquid imaginable, hot or cold! This must be a direct route to fly heaven and much preferred to being caught on a sticky tape or smashed with a flyswatter.

While I was still teaching, I had the awful habit of bringing coffee into the classroom. Knowing that flies crawling into warm liquid are at their worst in the early fall, you would have thought I would be more cautious. But on one memorable occasion, I was helping a young lady with her project, holding onto my coffee cup, and I took a sip. The minute the saturated fly touched my lips, I knew what had happened, and automatically did the reflexive thing. I spit that coffee everywhere, including all over the astonished young lady I was attempting to help. I apologized, sent her mother a note offering to clean her clothes and dumped that coffee with the fly carcass out the schoolhouse door. However, there is at least one student who does not remember me for inspiring her. She will remember me as the teacher who vomited hot coffee all over her! And it’s all that fly’s fault.

I have read reviews of restaurants where someone complains that they got a dish of something which contained a fly and they will never go to that restaurant again because of health issues, cleanliness failings, etc. However, anyone who has ever been in a South Dakota kitchen as July melts into August knows how easily this could happen…and it has nothing to do with health or cleanliness. Having said that, I would definitely send the fly-enhanced dish back, but I wouldn’t boycott the restaurant—unless I saw the cook stirring the stew with her hands!

And on that note, you are all welcome at any time for a meal at my house. I do know how to prepare most dishes without a fly as an ingredient. I will be very careful for your sake, but I do advise you to keep your eyes open. Cause you never know…the flies might have other ideas!

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February 27, 2026 · 7:18 pm

Not Making It

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Don’t worry, this isn’t some comment on my mental health. That remains as it always was—a little crazy. No, “Not Making It” is my official declaration on the state of the beds in my house.

Somewhere, far back in time, I imagine some uptight prehistoric woman. She was tidying her cave one morning, when she decided, “The furs in our sleeping nook need to be laid out straight.” So every morning after that, she spent ten minutes tugging and pulling and smoothing to make the furs look neat. And that was ten minutes less she had to spend on skinning whatever was for dinner.

A few millennia later, the lady of the castle looked at the bulging, billowing feather and straw mattresses and said, “You know what, the maids don’t have enough to do. In addition to the covers on those beds, let’s add some smooth undergarments that we can shove the mattresses into to make them look neater.” And so sheets were born.

And if I could touch a stone and travel in time like they do in Outlander, I would go back to both of those eras with one simple question: Why?

Also, where in our country’s Constitution does it say, “We the People (Women) in order to form a more perfect bedroom, must each day “make” the bed.” And I’m not perfect on the Bible, but I don’t remember it being in there either that while Moses was parting the Red Sea, some woman would be back in the tent, making up the bed so the Pharoah wouldn’t think they were slobs!

If you come to my house on any day where people have spent the night, you may not want to look in the bedrooms if the sight of rumpled bedding upsets you. I’m willing to bet most people in charge of the family’s housework won’t mind a bit! And while we’re being candid, the beds are more than rumpled. You’d be lucky if all the blankets and sheets were still on the mattress!

When I am truly distressed, I will have nightmares. The most traumatic dream is one in which I have been locked in a 20-story hotel and I can’t leave until I’ve made all the beds! The worst part is that when I wake up in a cold sweat from this nightmare, I realize I’m going to have to change the bedding. More trauma!

Perhaps the most heinous crime of all was the invention of the “fitted sheet.” Now, when it comes to putting them on the bed, I get it. It makes it easier to keep it in place. But when it has to be untwisted from the dryer and folded, it’s a little like hanging curtains in a high wind—there aren’t enough hands to do it! Everyone has their own method; mine consists of starting to fold, getting frustrated and wadding up the sheet and cramming it in the closet. This works for me!

And then, there are those people who think I really want to do these things; I just need some instruction on how to do it. They are wrong. I once read an article that said making the bed was easy if you just woke up in the morning, and before you got up, you used your toes to straighten the bedding. I tried that once; I put out both hips and got cramps in every toe. The beds stay unmade.

The day I read that it is actually healthier to leave the bed unmade for a time to let it air out, I celebrated for a week—the approximate time I left the bed open to “air.” Think about it: this is a great out. If someone comes and your bed is unmade, you just tell them, “Oh, I’m thinking of my health and letting the bed air out.”

I have decided that it is time for me to write some instructive articles on bed making myself. “Leave it open to air in the morning. Remove all lumpy objects: coffee cups, cracker crumbs, books, etc. That night, wrap yourself in the quilt and fall into the bed, it will have aired enough by then—it’s safe.”

And so I say to the overly enthusiastic cave girl and the ambitious lady of the manor—handling beds is very simple: I’m not making it!

I’ll sleep so much better tonight—and the blankets won’t be smooth!

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December 5, 2025 · 10:51 am

Letting it Hang

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Right now, as I’m writing, I’m looking at the wall behind my computer and I am rather proud of it. There are two framed photos, a calendar (on the wrong month) two cardboard pieces with chalk drawings and the painting I made at a painting party many years ago.

I love looking at these things, but Roy avoids looking at this wall because it offends all of his sensibilities. It’s not that he minds the things I have on the wall (well, maybe he wishes the calendar was right), it’s the way I have hung them up. I like to say that my ability to decorate a wall with artwork or pictures is somewhat random, if you know what I mean.

Where Roy will measure and estimate and carefully string up a hanger on the back of the item, I prefer the thumbtack and sticky tape method. As for placement, well, I’m a little random there as well. It’s hurtful to the eye of a man who prefers precision in the hangings on his walls.

He came out of the bathroom after his morning shower one day rubbing his shoulder and holding a framed picture that I had just hung up the day before.

“Why did you take that picture down? I want it to hang over the shower,” I whined.

“Explain why we need a picture over the shower in the bathroom, where no one is likely to notice it?”

“It’s a beautiful picture of rain on flowers; perfect for the shower,” I said. “Now why did you take it down?”

“I didn’t take it down. Your perfect rainfall picture fell on me when I got out of the shower,” he explained, handing me the picture. “What did you hang it up with?”

“That little needle, right there,” I said, pointing to a tiny shard of metal on the wall above the shower.

He shook his head, walking away. “It’s too small to hold that picture and besides, it’s way off center.”

“Well, I’m hanging it back up, so just watch yourself when you come out of the shower,” I said, defiantly.

“Just the words a fella wants to hear concerning his own bathroom,” he was getting sarcastic. “Maybe none of my relatives will have to use the toilet when they are here.”

It’s always the same. What should we hang up and where should we hang it? It’s a question that can at least cause ripples in a marriage. While I am holding the picture up approximately where it should go on the wall, he is dragging out the tape measure and sorting through his supplies of nails to figure out which one goes.

After hanging a picture recently that required him to get up and down on a ladder, he said to me, “Is this hanging evenly?”

“Yes, it looks just fine,” I answered. “Don’t worry about it.”

It seems those are exactly the wrong words to say to him about pictures. He climbed down off the ladder, stepped back to look at the picture, got back on the ladder, adjusted it (he didn’t ask my opinion that time), got down, looked again and went up for one final tweak. I’m convinced the last one wasn’t necessary; he was just showing off.

I have several more things that I would like to hang up, but I am going to wait until this latest round of marital picture hanging has faded into memory. In other words, I’m just going to let it hang!

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October 12, 2025 · 12:41 am

Insecure in the Security Line

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Before I say too much here, allow me to state that I understand the very serious purpose of security checks at the airport. I am grateful for the caution that is used to keep me safe.

Having said that, I must tell you that security lines at the airport make me frozen with fear. I don’t know why. I’m not trying to smuggle in a weapon; I don’t plan to hijack the plane or blow it up (I’m not keen on killing myself). But suddenly, when I look into the eyes of a security officer at the airport, I remember that I still have that breath mint, wrapped in crinkly paper, stuck in the pocket of my jeans. It came from Amsterdam, and here I am, trying to get into Paris. What if it shows up in X-ray and they detain me for unlawful transport of oral deodorants???????!!!!!!

I think it’s safe to say that authority of any kind turns me into a dithering idiot and on most good days, I don’t have all that far to go to get there. I don’t need a lady eying me up and down as she puts on her plastic gloves and asks me if I want to step into a private room. No I do not! Whatever we’re going to do, we’re going to do in front of everyone! Or upon reflection, maybe not!

Generally, I am not thinking about these security lines when I get ready to go on a trip. And it seems like every time I go through one, either I wore the shirt with the studs decorating the shoulders, or I brought home a bag of trinkets in a souvenir bag that has what they described as a “suspicious odor.” I don’t tell them that the studs are really cheap plastic and the souvenir bag smells funny because it spent the night before sitting on my smelly sneakers. It’s better not to argue; just let them pat down those plastic studs or run a security wand through the souvenirs and discover there is really nothing lethal on the Paddington Bear I was bringing my grandson!

The X-ray machines are always a treat. I once heard a lady tell a TSA officer at the Denver airport as she stepped into the security X-ray, “Oh good, I’m overdue for my mammogram!” The officer was clearly not amused and so I swallowed my laugh before it could get out and meekly entered the machine without any smart comments about needing copies for my Christmas cards! The first thing you are told is not to make jokes. Unfortunately, when I am nervous, jokes just fall out of my mouth and they are wasted on people who aren’t allowed to have a sense of humor on the job.

I once set off the security alarms with a briefcase in the JFK in New York. With four security officers standing and staring at me, I went completely blank. I couldn’t remember the combination to the briefcase. I tried three times to get it right and by the time I finally got it open, even I wondered if I was smuggling in something lethal! It turned out that the marble statuette I had gotten my mother-in-law looked suspicious to the machine, but when they discovered I couldn’t shoot bullets out of it, they gave it back and left me alone to try and re-lock my briefcase with my trembling fingers!

I also get rattled when I am trying to put all my belongings into the little bins. At the Dublin airport, I needed to take off my jacket and give them the bag I had around my neck. Unfortunately, the bag was over the jacket, so when I tried to take the jacket off first, I nearly hung myself. The security fellow said with a heavy Irish accent, “Off in reverse of how they went on, Love!” I was so rattled by the accent that I asked, “Do you want anything else off?” It’s the first time I ever accidentally propositioned a security officer, but he was very nice and just shook his head.

I have been traveling with a cane for the past couple of years because I need it for stairs. It’s a pain in a security line, though, because everyone has a different procedure for how to handle it. In the Paris security line, they took it away from me completely and ran it through a special x-ray machine. I got through everything and had the rest of my hand luggage, but the cane never appeared. I asked a couple of the officers, but they didn’t know what happened to it. Finally, I saw it sitting, leaned up against a wall. Were they done with it? I don’t know. I simply grabbed it and, resisting the impulse to run like I’d just robbed the bank, I walked on down the hallway to my gate. My face hasn’t appeared on any international terrorist wanted posters for illegal pilfering of a cane, so I think I’m fine!

Okay, now I’ve had my fun and the security officers have had theirs, so I can end this little saga. And the next time I travel…I’m taking a bike!

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October 4, 2025 · 7:00 am

The Viking Invasion

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Since coming to Ireland, I have learned that the Vikings never technically invaded the island. After an attempt or two, hundreds of years ago, they left for greener pastures (or easier targets).

That was true until my latest vacation. I had been planning the trip of a lifetime. For six years and more, I have planned to go to Europe and most of all, I wanted to visit Ireland. During those six years of planning, Roy has researched, mapped out and done a lot of legwork to decide where we were going to travel.

I would look at his research and improvised itinerary while he was busy with Sunday afternoon football. “I like the idea of spending several days in London,” I remarked.

“No, no, no! Where’s the defense!” he yelled, shaking his fist at the television. That kind of response could only mean the Vikings must be on.

“I also like the idea of ending the trip with Dublin. It will be a nice wrap-up,” I continued, glad I don’t have to travel with the Vikings.

“That reminds me,” he said. “Guess who will be in Dublin while we are there? The Vikings!”

It couldn’t be. “Tell me it’s the kind who invade countries and not the kind who play football!”

“Oh it’s the Minnesota Vikings football team. They are playing the Pittsburg Steelers in Dublin and it is just a lucky coincidence that we are going to be there too. I think we should go to the game.”

Lucky coincidence. It’s just a lucky coincidence that on the trip I have been dreaming about for years, I would have the opportunity to see the Minnesota Vikings play football. On the last Sunday of my vacation. In Dublin, Ireland! Lucky how?

I don’t believe in coincidence. I think the Vikings did this on purpose. They loaded up their Viking ship, sharpened up their weapons—or footballs and planned on invading Ireland just to put a dagger into my vacation.

The worst part is that this time Ireland was welcoming the Vikings—and the Steelers. They had up banners and signs and flags all over the city of Dublin. So, what was otherwise described in the travel brochures as a lovely old world city with quiet, winding streets, turned into a full scale flood of people in Vikings and Steeler gear and the only question you heard from a millions mouths with American accents was: Are you here for the game?

No! I was there to see Ireland. Ireland, which held off the Vikings hundreds of years ago and suddenly couldn’t hold them out long enough for me to see the city without balloon structure of every description hanging everywhere in Viking and Steeler colors. Thanks a lot, all you Irish Paddys: now, instead of old-world charm I’m going to get American football like any other random Sunday! You couldn’t have held them off for one more week?

So it was, on the last Sunday of my dream vacation, I moved as one with a swarm of American invaders to the ball park, where they fought, not with swords, but with downs and touchbacks and referees blowing whistles.

Since it was technically a Steelers home game, we were hopelessly outnumbered in the fan department, but we put on our purple and gold nonetheless and prepared to back Minnesota’s play.

And then, even worse happened: by the end of the third quarter, the Vikings were down by 15 points and their invasion appeared to be thwarted by a Pittsburg Steeler win. The least you Vikings could have done was win…or score or something! No, no no! Where’s the defense???

As is the case with the Vikings of Minnesota, they came back in the fourth quarter so hard that instead of the Steelers fans singing their victory song, there was the sound of thousands of Steelers fans holding their breath as the Vikings livened up the game by coming within three points at the final whistle.

So once again, a Viking invasion of the beautiful green island of Ireland failed, but not before it had caused my vacation to take a very weird turn. Skoll, Vikings!

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August 29, 2025 · 4:25 am

Go ahead; Bite Me!

Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I would like to write an article today in praise and admiration of that most humble and small insect…the mosquito. I would LIKE to write an article in praise and admiration of them, but unfortunately, mosquitoes do nothing to incite my praise or admiration!

I love the summer, but at about this time, when I am nursing the 910th mosquito bite of the season, I am ready for a good frost…something that will offer warm days after it but will kill off the mosquitoes! Of all the beings God put on the earth, this is the one I can’t quite reconcile myself to!

If a person is walking in the early morning, especially after a rainstorm, your walking companions are sure to be mosquitoes. If anyone saw me waving my arms and screaming at nothing, “Get off me! Will you get away from me?” they would have one of two reactions. First, if they are from this area, they would know I’m talking to mosquitoes. If they are not from this area, they might just assume I am the local harmless madwoman. And with enough mosquitoes around, it might just be both!

What is there about that dratted insect that causes it to go straight for the face? My grandson was here for a week and on the first day, he had four bites on his cheeks and one on his eyelid! Poor child looked like he had been in a street brawl!

I slap the most mosquitoes from my face and especially do I despise the hardy little varmints who try to crawl under my glasses. I have deformed, defaced and downright ruined more glasses while going after mosquitoes crawling under them than I can count, and a lot of times by the time I tear off the glasses, scream, “I’ve got you, you little devil!” and slap myself in the face, that is all I’ve accomplished—a slap in my face! The mosquito is flying away, laughing, “No, no, it is I who have got you! Thanks for the blood donation—happy itching!”

And therein comes my next complaint—what is there that effectively stops a mosquito bite from itching? Usually, by the time I realize I am scratching a mosquito bite, I have successfully removed one layer of skin—at least. Nothing I have tried has made a difference, and I think I’ve tried it all. I have slathered myself with enough oatmeal paste to feed a small nation and I have tried myriad types of jellies and creams and only succeeded in greasing myself up like a pig in a wrestling competition.  None of the treatments I have tried have stopped the itching.

In order to distract myself from my latest set of bites (seven of them on my feet, no less), I looked up information about the mosquito. Only the female “bites” apparently, but she does it so she can develop eggs. That means that miserable witch is using my blood to make MORE mosquitoes! Whatever they use it for, they draw blood with the precision of a needle and the skill of a surgeon. They live about 30 days, which is just 29 and three quarters too long, and best of all, while they are digging around in our blood vessels, sucking blood which would make Count Dracula proud, they are able to share all the nasty diseases they are carrying!

It said in the article that mosquitoes can be “controlled” with insecticides, or by destroying the areas where they breed. I am sure that the scientists out there know what they are doing, but I have to say that nothing is so satisfying in controlling a mosquito as the “slap, slap” of my hand, producing a squashed insect! I know that makes me bloodthirsty but look who I’m fighting.

I suppose, since I have nothing praise-worthy or admirable to say about the mosquito, I should end this article. But let me say in closing, “Mosquitoes: we are bigger than you and sometimes even smarter and besides all that, winter is coming; so why don’t you just bite me? Oh, wait! No, I take it back! ‘Slap, Slap’ I don’t mean to actually bite me, ‘Slap, slap, slap…”

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