As many of you know, I just love yard sales. I love going to them and I love having them. Because the thing is, if you go to a lot of yard sales, you have to have a yard sale every once and a while to get rid of all the stuff you bought at the other yard sales. Yard sales bring back memories, some good and some not so good.
Like last summer during our yard sale, I had a flashback to our worst Christmas ever. I am referring to Christmas 2000, the year of Big Mouth Billy Bass. You remember them, don’t you? That fish mounted on a plaque? It looks normal enough at first, but it comes with a battery and motion sensor. And when you got near it, the fish starts moving its head and tail, singing, “Take Me To the River,” or “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” 
Because it looks like a real trophy, it startles the person walking by, and makes everyone laugh. How many of you own one? And fess up: how many of you still find them funny?
Well, the husbands of the Women Who Run With the Moose (which is me and my friends Celeste, Rita, Betty, Dot, and Shirley) are big time into fishing and hunting, and they thought Billy Bass was hysterical. So they all bought one to give to their wives for Christmas. (I know!) I admit, it was kind of funny the first fifty times or so, especially if you were not the one being surprised by it.
Now granted, I’m not big on things like that to begin with. You know, a Santa that, when you push a button, wiggles around and sings “Jingle Bell Rock”? It’s just too Bride of Chucky for me. Charlie knew this and started teasing me with Billy Bass. He kept moving it around the house, so it was constantly surprising me. One day it was in the den, another in the kitchen, the linen closet. One night I got up to go to the bathroom and it was waiting for me over the toilet. “Take Me To the River.” “I’m going to take you to the trash can and stuff you in Mr. Billy Bass,” I says.
Charlie thought it was a riot. I just couldn’t get him to stop. I tried everything: moving it to his workshop, taking the batteries out, hiding it and the batteries, stuffing it in the trash. That damn fish always seemed to resurface.
The last straw came at 3:00 in the morning, when I get up go to the bathroom, come back in the bedroom, and whip back the covers only to hear, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” I nearly had a heart attack! I says to Charlie, “I hope Billy Bass is good in bed, because that’s who you’re going to be sleeping with if Billy doesn’t go bye-bye, right now, forever! I’m not fooling around here, Charlie. It’s me or the fish.”
And that was the last I saw of Billy. Until last summer, when we had our yard sale. I see this fella from away coming out of the shed where he’d been looking at Charlie’s tools, with Big Mouth Billy Bass under his arm, looking pleased as punch.
“Looks like you got yourself a real prize there. That’s the original model. Must be a collectors item by now.”
“Oh yes,” he says. “That guy in the shed gave me a great deal on it. My wife is going to love it.”
That’s it for now. Catch you on the flipside!
This one’s a classic. So much so, I even made a video of it. Check it out.
Upcoming Performances and Book Events Winter/Spring 2018
March 7: Book Reading, Cumston Public Library, 6:30pm, Monmouth, ME
March 10: Book Reading, South Portland Public Library, http://southportlandlibrary.com/ 2:00pm, South Portland, ME
March 27: A Visit With Ida, South Berwick Public Library http://www.southberwicklibrary.org/ 7:00pm, South Berwick, ME
March 29: A Visit With Ida, Gardiner Adult Education, http://msad11.maineadulted.org/ 6:00pm, Gardiner, ME
April 10: Book Reading, Goodall Memorial Library, http://lbgoodall.org/#&panel1-1 6:30pm, Sanford, ME
May 1: Book Reading, Berwick Public Library, https://www.berwick.lib.me.us/ 6:00pm, Berwick, ME
Check out my full schedule here: http://www.idaswebsite.com/schedule/