This is my official public service announcement to you: you should probably rethink things if you decide you want to follow a drunk driver. And there you have it, folks. Your official ‘Learn From Lisa’s Idiocy’ report. See how nice I am, sparing you from being as dumb as I? You’re welcome.

So now you wanna know what happened, huh? You want to hear all about my stupidity, huh? Alright, alright. I’ll tell ya all about it!

What Happened, Lisa?

The other night, I went to pick up my kids from the church where they hang out with the youth group and since Shawn is a new driver, he wanted to drive home. No problem. That is, until we are peacefully going down the road, in the right lane – and some doofus in the left lane comes into our lane by about a foot or so and so completely almost sideswipes us!!

Shawn handled it SO WELL! He carefully swerved over to the shoulder and then back again when doofus-brain was ahead of us. I tell him to slow down and cover the brake, because, I can see that doofus is not correcting himself very well and I’m pretty sure he’s going to hit someone ahead of us. Which he does – and then he takes off! And next thing you know he’s turning left onto a side road!

When he hit the people, I decided that I was going to have Shawn pull over with them, as we were the only witnesses, I was pretty sure. All the other cars were in front of us. But then the guy foils my plan and runs from the people! (Maybe he only has a San Diego DUI Lawyer and he just doesn’t have one out here in Alabama! Who knows!) But then I’m stuck with making a split-second decision – with my new driver driving. And man, I really felt on the spot. The guy’s turning down a side road – who knows what’s gonna happen next.

So What Did Happen Next?

At the last second, I decide to have Shawn follow them. I figured that the guy probably was not going to stop and we could get the victims to pull over and give them our information. I figured with a ‘hit and run’ they were really going to need a witness, you know? I tell Shawn just to hang back some, because, who knows what could happen, right? We see, though, that the drunk guy pulled over into a church parking lot and the victims pull in after him. So we drive on down there and pull over, as well.

And let me tell you, this guy was out of it!! It was nuts. He kept trying to change the whole story. He said that he hit the people right in front of his apartment on this side road – nope. On the highway, dude. He said he had two kids. Then he said he had three kids. And the guy didn’t have insurance or even a license. Been there done that already, with a DUI? Maybe…

The people that he hit were an elderly couple and they were as nice as could be and were really grateful that we had stopped. The police eventually came and did a field sobriety test on the guy, which he sorely failed, and cuffed him. They talked to all of us, getting all of the details of what happened and got our information and that was pretty much that.

So it all turned out okay. That is, until I told my hubby what happened.

Why In The Heck Did You Follow Them?!

I called hubby to tell him all about it, thinking it was a pretty exciting story. I mean, heck, Shawn doesn’t even have his license yet and he’s almost been hit by a drunk driver! And it’s always exciting when the police are involved, right? Well, if you’re not the one getting cuffed, anyway. But you know what? Mark got mad. Hrmph. What a way to spoil a girl’s fun!

He said, “Why in the hell did you follow them? What were you thinking? Are you crazy? You could have gotten shot. That could have been a gang member or some hillbilly with a gun! Why didn’t you just pull over where you were and call the police???”

Oh, duh. At that moment, you know, when I was deciding what to do (when the guy turned left) my brain told me I had two options. Follow so you can be a witness – or go home. It never even entered my mind to just pull over right there and call the police. Darn brain! Some help you are! I totally could have done that and still been helpful to those people – and not risked our lives by following God knows who, who is quite obviously drunk and committing a hit and run. Sheesh!

I swear sometimes my brain just wants me dead. It can really be no help at all! But at least you can benefit from it! Learn from my idiocy:

Don’t follow drunk drivers!!

I’m always singing, “Slinky, Slinky, what a wonderful, wonderful toy!” And one day I was talking with some friends about it and we were thinking that maybe that’s not how the commercial went and maybe I was mixing it up with the Felix the Cat theme song. So of course, I headed right over to YouTube to see what chaos was happening in the blender of my memories in my silly brain!

And guess what I discovered? Even though I was wrong, they do sound quite similar! And I really did just kind of “blender” them in my head!

Check it out:

Felix the Cat –>

Slinky Commercial –>

It’s so much fun having all that history on YouTube! I’m always looking stuff up – and often bugging my kids with it! We have quite an advantage that our parents didn’t have, in that we can now show our kids that “really cool show we used to watch” …or “that commercial that we just loved” …or whatever it is!

More ways to drive my teenagers bonkers? Awesome! You gotta love that!

I know I have this wonderful and totally awesome Thinkpad and I absolutely do love it, but, I’ve become obsessed with mini netbooks in the last year or so. I really, really want one. Two of my online friends have gotten them and just loved them! And let me tell you, did I get jealous when I saw them just slip them easily in their purse and jump up ready to go! Meantime, I’m over there making sure my bulky laptop is tightly secured in its bag, throwing my purse and the heavy laptop bag over my shoulder, stiffening up my shoulder ….grunting …and then and only then am I ready to go!

I was at conferences with both of these ladies and wow! How much easier did they have it when it was time to sit in the conference room, sit down and pop out their mini netbooks – ready to tweet, blog, take notes and whatever else… And there was bulky old me over there (hey! I resemble that!) finding a place for my purse, working my laptop carefully out of its bag, finding a place on the floor for the bag, opening up the laptop and waiting for it to turn on. Again, meantime – they’d written half a blog post about the rockin’ cool speaker we were listening to! Argh!

See what I mean here? Not that I’m at conferences all that often, really. Maybe a few times a year, if I’m lucky. I’m sure, though, that there would be other instances in which a mini would come in handy! You know there would be!

I go back and forth over which brand I want to put on my mental wishlist, so today I was checking out Dell computers and I found the Inspiron Mini 10. That thing looks really cool. It’s interesting how when you open it, the top and the bottom parts are not flush with each other. Makes it a bit ’space-agey’. Maybe if I found some good Dell coupons and promos , I could even talk someone into getting it for me. Like a certain contractor dude who lives with me!

We were gonna get my desktop repaired, maybe I’ll just opt to get one of these instead. Hmm… And maybe I can sweeten the deal by showing him the Home Depot coupons at Savings . Whaddya think?

It might just work!

This post was brought to you by your friends at Savings.com.

A local friend of mine was on Facebook today posting pictures of a recent bridal luncheon she’d been to and I realized that I haven’t been to a baby shower in a very long time. At one point in my life, that would have been an extremely comforting thought – a long time span with NO baby showers. I used to really detest them. They were so freaking boring! A bunch of women, or even just a few, heck – a group of women, sitting around politely, speaking quietly, being all super polite and demure and whatnot. Ya’ll gotta know me better than that, right? Demure??? Come on!!

Baby showers have really changed over the years, though, and many of them are actually quite fun – even for scalliwags such as myself! People get very creative with their baby shower themes ideas and host what turn out to be fun parties filled with laughter and all kinds of chaos! There are lots of different hilarious games that people play and some people even invite not only the menfolk, but, the kids, too! And then it is really a wild shindig! Practically just like a regular party – except you get to ooh! and aah! over a bunch of hip, new baby gear and gadgets!

A lot of people theme their baby showers according the colors of the baby’s room and/or the baby’s gender – I know my first one was all in primary colors, as that’s what Patrick’s room was decorated in. All of that kid’s stuff, from the bedding to the blinds, from the stroller to all the clothing – was all in primary colors. I just loved it. It was such an exciting time! Now, though, some people are using sweet kid movies for their themes, like princess and the frog baby shower decorations. That sure would make for a really cute nursery. And I imagine if that was the theme of your shower, you could base the games on that, too. And who knows – maybe even the prizes, too. If the winners had kids, that is.

So I mean, I do like cutesy stuff, don’t get me wrong! And I love babies and munchkins – and you will hear me positively gushing over new baby outfits, etc…. It’s just when it gets all prim and proper and quiet and all that – that’s when I can’t stand it! People are really getting a lot more entertaining with the showers they throw – and that’s definitely a plus in my book!

What do you think? Do you like baby showers?

This amazing and wonderful dog, Thor, became a real hero today! His family’s home caught on fire when the family was asleep and he went into the bedroom and jumped on the bed and demanded that his mom and dad get up and get out of the house!!!

And then, Mom and Dad turned to move toward the bassinet to get their three month old baby, only to discover that Thor had already dragged the bassinet all the way to the bedroom door!!!!! Way to go, Thor! You absolutely rock, dude!! And you help to make a good name for your breed. Rotten humans have ‘tarnished’ your breed with their nefarious activities, but your actions today really show that you are just as much man’s best friend as any other dog!!

Donations to the family may be directed through the Elkhart County Red Cross. Call (574) 293-6519

You can read all kinds of good stuff about pit bulls at The Truth About Pitbulls, an information-packed site by a wonderful animal crusader!!