I couldn't make this up if I tried...

Last night we spent the night at my parents. They installed our new countertops yesterday and it stunk. I rocked Blythe to sleep and put her to bed and when I came back to the living room there was a really old copy of Pilgrim's Progress on the end table. So I pointed to it and asked, "What's with the book?" Turns out Caleb had never read it. Somehow that had come up and my parents were lending him their copy. Now, hold that thought for a moment.

My family has what I like to call Corbinisms. Things we say all the time, that I don't even realize are strange until I say them in front of people outside the Corbin family and am met with silence and worried looks. One of the most used sayings is, "Get in Ida!" Way back in the day when cars were just replacing horse drawn carriages my great Uncle Elzie and great Aunt Ida were getting used to their new car. The story goes that Ida was a little slow getting in this new fangled contraption so my Uncle Elzie would just start the car and get moving before Ida was completely in the car. This would leave her hopping along beside the moving vehicle trying to get both feet in and the door closed all the while Elzie would be yelling, "Get in, Ida!!"

Back to last night.
I asked what was with the book and this was my dad's answer. I would call it a conversation, except it wasn't. He just kept talking. At times, the other 3 of us were talking over him or laughing about something, but he never really stopped his story. So here is what he said as close to verbatim as I can get it.

"You know that has Ida Parr's name in the front of that book. Ida as in "Get in, Ida!" Did you know that we lived with the Parrs while Daddy (my grandpa George) built our little house. The house that later became the first library in Coppell. It was not the greatest of houses. The floors were so slanted that you could sit against one wall, roll a ball to the other wall and it would come back to you. It wasn't very tight either. One night I got up to go to the bathroom and got stung on the toe by a scorpion. We had one of those crank phones too. (He is pantomiming holding the receiver to his ear with his left hand and cranking with his right.) You would say, 'Mrs. Barfnecht, connect me to Pleasant Corbin please.' My Uncle Pleasant Corbin lived across the street. He had a motorcycle with a sidecar. He also had a pet goat and he would put that goat in the side car and ride around with it."

His soliloquy ended there. What else can you say after you've given the mental picture of a man named Pleasant riding around on a motorcycle with a goat in his side car.