If You Blow It: A 'Bama Tale

Last week we traveled down to Alabama to visit my brother, my sister-in-law, and my nieces.

It was a seriously long drive but worth it to see my family. They did the "Southern hospitality" cliche proud.

There was lots of talking, threats to push me into the pool but I stared those family members down, really big bugs with which I did not engage in a staring contest (better not to make eye contact), mule rides, blueberry picking, a walk around the lovely campus of Auburn University, and a Fourth of July picnic.

Oh, yeah, the picnic.

There were many interesting people there from varied backgrounds. At one point, I'm told, my sister-in-law looked proudly upon her "diversity pool"--which I was not in because it was still not hot enough for a pool to look even remotely tempting to me.

Night approached and Mr. Venger, Venger Jr, and Vengerette mosied off to the middle of the front yard far away from the house where they had earlier built a staging area for the fireworks display Mr. Venger had carefully planned. Fireworks of all kinds are perfectly legal in 'bama--- as long as it's not too dry. I kept my promise and brought enough rain to diminish any fire hazards to the drought-stricken area, and Mr. Venger paid a little visit to Shelton's and purchased some totally cool stuff, so we were all set.

The first few were unimpressive. But my hubby was just teasing us. Soon there were awesome explosions and colorful flashes of light across the sky that made the grown-ups get off the porch to see. Cars slowed to watch. Then one car stopped. And never turned off his headlights. Spectators were more than welcome, but headlights were not. We Northerners were none too pleased. "Yo, Dude! Turn out your lights!" I shouted as politely as possible, but my voice wouldn't carry that far. My little niece, sitting on my lap, echoed "Yo, Dude! Turn out your lights!" She was so cute! It was an incredibly proud moment for me--corrupting the sweet Southern-belle-in-training with my Northern ways and all.

Referring to the famous line from "Field of Dreams", my sister-in-law in total innocence said of those cruising by, "If you blow it, they will come."

Hey, Reader! Get your mind out of the gutter!

Alright, in all fairness...

The teenagers were the first to giggle. Next, the adults got it and chuckled. Then Freud laughed--at least, I think it was him. It wasn't until afterwards, however, that the full implication of the sentence finally dawned on her. Upon her conscious mind, that is.

Anyway, everyone had so much fun that there was talk of doing it all again next year. Also, there was some discussion of printing t-shirts with "If you blow it, they will come" emblazoned on them. Or maybe we'll just say "Blow II" and leave it at that.