The family was hunting for a used minivan and both a young Elizabeth and an even younger Stephen had been carefully instructed by their dad not to show any pleasure or delight with the car, as that would only cause them to raise the price. As they were taking a car for a test drive, Elizabeth hit on the brilliant idea of taking it to the opposite end. She immediately began complaining about the car and enlisted Stephen's help.

"Daddy, this car is dirty! There are candy wrappers in the cup holders!"
 Poor embarrassed salesman-"Oh of course we will clean the car before it's sold."

"Daddy, the windows of this car are dirty!"
Salesman-"Oh, of course! I will see that the windows are washed today."

"Daddy, this car is so high up! It bothers me."
Salesman-"Everyone feels that way at first, but I'm sure that you'll get used to it."

They bought the car for a very good price.

Grace and Renee liked to play family, but were continually faced with the problem of what to do about the husband(s). They had no boys to play the part and neither relished doing it themselves. They found a solution in either killing him off or sending him on perpetual business trips. It was usually the former, only they had it in their innocent little heads that one could only die prematurely in war and they didn't quite understand how wars worked. One day they were playing grocery store. Renee was the checkout clerk and Grace was a customer with her baby (a doll). while "checking out" the "mother" said to the "clerk", "The baby's father is dead. He died in a war. The other team beat his team."

"The family was going on a military post to watch the Fourth of July fireworks, and because they were civilians they had to have their car checked. There were many others that had to be checked and the guards were not very thorough in their inspection. As they were leaving the check post, Stephen said with a middle eastern accent, "Praise Allah they did not look in the trunk!" He was joking of course and everyone found it very amusing. They were also quite glad that the guards didn't hear him."

I have decided to merge one of my other blogs with this one so at intervals I'm going to re-post the stories from there onto here.....

"When they were little, Grace and Renee found men with long hair quite novel, and would often inquire as to which gender these unusual specimens belonged. On one such occasion, Renee and her mother were checking out at the grocery store and the man in line behind them had particularly long locks. "Is that a man or a woman?" Renee asked loudly. The surprised and slightly embarrassed fellow asked her if he looked like a woman and she promptly responded to the affirmative."

Abigail is what I suppose you would call my pen name. My name isn't Abigail nor is my middle name, but I feel that it suits me so whenever I don't want to use my real name or just feel like using a different one I use Abigail. Oddly enough some time after I had chosen it some friends and I were sitting around waiting for something and we started trying to guess each others middle names. The boy trying to guess mine guessed Abigail because he said I seemed like an Abigail, so evidently I chose right. :)
I've found myself wondering recently whatever happened to Abigail from the Bible after she married David. She stopped him from killing her husband, her husband died, David married her, and so far as I can remember we never hear anything about her again. Did she have kids? Did David ever love her? Was she happy? What was her life like? I tried Wikipedia which indicated she might have given David a son, but that it was unclear. Beyond that she she seems to have been swallowed up by the past with her marriage. I suppose I'll never know the answer to those questions, because, of course, if Wikipedia doesn't know no one does.
Abigail means "Source of joy", "My father is joy", or "Father's joy". Different places say different things. I have decided that if I have a daughter I would want to name her Abigail. It would fit well with Margaret and Amy which mean "Pearl" and "Beloved" respectively. My Joy, My Treasure, and My Love. Now I want three girls with my three to five boys.....

The church I attend has communion every Sunday and with the bread they have both juice and wine. This morning I accidentally took the wine instead of the juice. I had heard that wine was bitter tasting but I was by no means prepared for the sensation that was coming. For a few moments I thought I was going to throw up. It was the vilest tasting liquid I have ever put in my mouth! When I think of the women who post about really wanting a "nice glass of wine" I cringe inside. The taste rather put me in mind of juice that had been sitting outside putrefying in a dog's water bowl for several weeks, perhaps with several pieces of doggie food soaking in it and maybe even one or five of the dog's chew toys. On top of the nauseating flavor there was a very warm tingling feeling that slid down the throat and sat in the chest and from there trickled down to my stomach. I shall never drink wine again. Ever.

There is a park across the street from my building that I like to walk in sometimes. One day as I was doing so I noticed that there were little piles of cat food lying along one of the paths and there were several stray cats feasting on them. Upon walking a little further I spotted the author of these little meals, a person I have since entitled The Cat Man. The Cat Man is an elderly gentleman, about 65 I should say, who comes to the park everyday to feed the cats. Now no cat would dream of hurrying towards anything, and not all the cats entirely trust him, but when they see him they gather just as quickly as they can without appearing particularly interested. Some even allow him pet them while they're eating which he generally does. He looks as though he were a member of some nice country club so I don't think he's lonely, but perhaps he doesn't have any children, or he does but they grew up, left, and don't keep in touch. Then again, he may just like cats a lot but his wife wont let him keep them. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to ask him why he does it.