Steven Again Lands On His Feet

Some of you know my brother Fred who lived on the dangerous edge but was blessed with a large dose of sheer luck that always had him skating out the other side of disaster, still on his feet and with a smile on his face.

(I say "lived" rather than "lives" because he's toned down a bit.)

Then there was Tristan in the James Herriot books who lived the same way but, Herriot said, always landed on his feet.

Well, that's what Steven is like.

He forgets, procrastinates, lives on the knife edge, pushes his limits, acts on impulse, and exasperates the life out of more responsible people, but he always sails through on a huge inborn dose of charm and luck.

Which is very irritating when responsible people are trying to teach him a lesson.

So the youth group decided to go camping. Yes, tent camping, and it's been raining pretty much every day for weeks, but that's another story. Wednesday night they all came home from Bible study with a list of supplies they need, plus a post-it telling them what food to bring for the group.

Ben said he's supposed to bring two bags of pepperoni. I made sure someone picked it up in town.

Amy said she needs to make macaroni salad. She bought the ingredients and made the salad.

Steven said his paper didn't have a post-it and he doesn't need to bring anything. He repeated this insistently every time I asked.

Today they gathered sleeping bags and flashlights and got ready to go. Five minutes before they were leaving Steven exclaimed, "Oh! I was supposed to bring food after all!"

"STEVEN OCHIENG SMUCKER!" said Amy.

SIGH said Mom.

We looked at the paper. "Two bags of chips. One bag of marshmallows." We had them all on hand. We threw them in the food sack and they left.

Steven just grinned.

Quote of the Day:
(At Torero's in Harrisburg)
Me: [tapping the table] What color would you call this? It's not orange and it's not pink. I can't think of the word for it.
Jenny: Salmon?
Me: Yes! Salmon! How did you know?
Jenny: I have a wide variety of colored pencils.