See: Why We Need Cell Phones: Also Related to Divorce Rate: Squirrel Skinning Kit.

I realized while Joey and I were witnesses to the near divorce due to a bag cell phone, this is not the moment my parents remember as near divorce. Theirs is related to recovering a chair, which we like to call “The Squirrel Skinning Incident”.

Here’s the background: One day, some time ago, my grandpa shot a squirrel and asked my grandma to help him skin it so they could cook it up and eat it. Now squirrels, I hear, are tricky to skin. It involves something like nailing the tail to a tree so you can pull down on both sides of its body. The pulling needs to be very exact, or you’ll rip the skin and cause terrible squirrel skinning issues. My grandma starts telling him, “You’re pulling too fast”, he replies “You’re not pulling hard enough”. Back and forth until I’m sure the squirrel was never eaten, and it was a divorce or death situation. This squirrel will live in infamy in my family as the moment my grandparents almost killed each other, but didn’t, and realized their marriage could survive anything.

My parents experienced their squirrel moment while trying to recover a chair. Incredibly similar to a squirrel, recovering a chair means pulling the fabric to exactly the same tension before stapling it down. The story goes they both had hammers, but survived the incident.

Whether it’s a family curse or destiny of man-kind, I have been waiting for my squirrel moment ever since learning of its powers. Once J and I tried to assemble Ikea furniture together, but it just didn’t feel quite squirrel worthy.

We Need Cellphones: To Decrease the Divorce Rate.

I can attest to this, as I’m pretty sure my parents were the closest I ever saw to divorce due to the lack of a cell phone. Actually I think we had a cell phone at this time, but it was in a bag in the car.

Anyway my family likes to hike. Mountains, streams, grassy knolls, we’ve trekked along them all. During family vacations we like to travel somewhere that is known for it’s beautiful hiking. The bad part about hiking is the lack of flushing toilets, and I supposed what’s worse is toting along small children. So before we took off on a long hike my mom took my brother and I to the bathroom, telling my dad to go grab the camera out of the car. Somewhere in the transit of that message, something was lost, like where we were going to meet up afterwards. We made a pit stop at the gift shop and headed down to meet at the trail head. Waiting and waiting, we realize dad must be at the gift shop. So we head back that way. Of course there is more than one path to the gift shop…

I don’t remember how long we walked in circles until we found each other. All I remember is once we did all meet up, Joey and I were deciding who we’d pick to live with when they got their divorce.

Cell phones people. It’s the greatest invention of all time.

That or a squirrel skinning kit, but it’s a toss up, since they both relate to divorce rate.

Happy Birthday to the best red Power Ranger Ever!