A Canon of Creative Cannonball Uses

Regarding yesterday’s post, “Murder by Mattress“, my husband, Cap’n Firepants, insists that I must be the one trying to kill him – considering that the mattress seems to be more harmful to his health than mine.

“If I wanted to kill you, I would find a much faster way to do it than making you sleep on a mattress that makes you walk crooked for 10 years,” was my reply.  I decided not to list the dozen alternative ways that immediately come to mind for expediting someone’s death.  I don’t want him to become paranoid or anything.

I stand by my original theory that he is out to get me – not the other way around.

I figure that, before my untimely demise, I should probably give out the award I promised for the Most Creative Way to Use a Cannonball.  Although there were many viable entries, I decided to go with El Guapo because he gave me a whopping total of 5 ideas.  This is what he came up with:

-Attach a chain to it. whenever you or Cap’n have to be somewhere and the other can’t make it, bring it as the old ball and chain
-Put it in a cannon on the lawn and point it conspicuously at the annoying neighbor du jour
-If there are any markings on it, you might be able to track down some information on it
-Hang it in the school yard for bad-child tetherball
-Paint it like a balloon and use it for your delightful “lead balloon” comedy/variety show

This leads me to jump to some not-so-obvious conclusions about Guap:

• He has much experience with cannonballs
• He has not lived next to our annoying neighbors, who would not be even the slightest bit cowed by such a subtle hint as a cannon aimed at their abode
• He wants me to get sued
• He really wants the prize that I offered

I am going to assume that it was the last one, because the “I Wonderbutt, Do You?” award is highly coveted and very rare.

So, here you go, Guap.  Take good care of it.

(I won’t tell you which of Guap’s suggestions I am going to take, but I will tell you that our neighbors, the Clampetts, are, at this moment, making a heckuva lot of noise – and eBay’s cannon listings will be my next stop after publishing this post.)

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A Cannonball in my Living Room

Among the things that belong to my mother-in-law that will not fit in her new home is a cannonball that used to reside on the front lawn of her grandmother’s house.  No one is quite sure about its history prior to landing in the front lawn.  All my mother-in-law can say is that it had “been there since I can remember.”

Well, it isn’t there now.  It is in a storage unit nearby.  But it’s one of the many objects that does not fit into one of the neat sorting categories that we have worked out: Things to Throw Away, Things to Give to Goodwill, Things to Take to our House, Things to Give to Other Family Members.

As you can see, Things to Make our Yard Look Like A Civil War Battlefield is not one of our predetermined categories.

It’s quite obvious that it cannot be thrown away – mostly because I don’t want to be fined by the city for ruining one of their garbage trucks.  I am also pretty certain Goodwill is not going to feel the need to add a cannonball to its showroom.  Although it might make for an interesting commercial: “Come to Goodwill, where you can find anything from secondhand clothes to cannonballs of dubious origin.”

It is a historical relic that should probably be kept in the family, I suppose.  (Although this does lead one to the philosophical question, “Is it still a historical relic if you don’t know the history behind it?)  I am just trying to think of a creative way to display it.

We could set it on Wonderbutt’s bed so he can’t drag the bed all over the floor.  Or, maybe we could use it to roll in front of his dog door to keep the critters out at night.

Since it’s already somewhat orange-ish, maybe we could paint a scary face on it, call it Cannonball Lecter, and make it into a permanent jack-o-lantern on our front stoop.

Dimples suggested that her synchronized swimming team could use it to help practice doing lifts in the water.

Or, maybe we should just save the cannonball until Wonderbutt completely decimates our living room, which will most certainly happen when I go back to school at the end of the summer.  Then we can put the cannonball in the middle of the wreckage and say we got bombed.  In the literal sense.  Because people would not be quite as sympathetic about the other kind of “bombed”, I imagine.  Even though that might be more believable.

With so many possibilities, it seems to me that this would make a good contest.  If you have a creative suggestion for our cannonball, please add it to the comments.  The lucky winner will receive an “I Wonderbutt, Do You?” award icon for your blog.  If you are not a blogger, I guess you can always make it your screen saver.

Not the kind of cannonball I meant.  (Oh, and that isn’t me, by the way.)
photo credit: iambicpentameter via photo pin cc