While Connor and Kaitlynn were waiting for their Morgan cousins to arrive for Christmas at MeMe and Grandaddy's house, they were beyond annoyed about always being the first family to arrive to the festivities. Finally, Michelle and Ryah showed up and almost immediately, the cousin "sillies" kicked in! Connor, Ryah, and Kaitlynn began to actively seek random activities to do together. They first began removing every single gift from under the Christmas tree to see which gifts went to each person. There was a lot of creative commentary and guessing games about what might be contained in each box, followed by a stealth James Bond-like game to remove each gift from under the tree and pretend it had been lost. That took up about an hour, at which point they were bored again and itching to open presents.
In their quest to forget about the Christmas presents ("Mom, I can't wait another second! I NEED to open a present!!" haha), Grandaddy came to the cousins' rescue with another activity that would most certainly kill some hours on the clock. He had a big plastic box full of keys in various shapes and sizes, and he presented it to the kids while enjoying their quizzical looks.
Now why on earth would Grandaddy have a big box of random keys, and what would this have to do with the kids? I thought the answer to that question might be better explained by sharing a little story that illustrates a tiny part of what it's like living in East Texas. Here goes:
When my parents bought their home and property in White Oak, it came with an old pumpjack right in the backyard. It was tucked into the wooded forest behind my parents' house and looked similar to one like this:
Yes, that's right. My parents had a pumpjack in their very own backyard! The pumpjack was no longer in service and it sat there for years and years on my parents' property before finally being removed, leaving behind an empty concrete slab directly behind my parents' house. Well, any proper Texan knows that you can't just let a concrete slab go to waste. That slab was calling out for something to be built on top of it. And that's just what Grandaddy decided to do: build a new shed. Never mind the fact that he already has a packed 2-car garage, a massive shop loaded to the ceiling with tools and lumber and miscellaneous estate sale treasures, and an old barn on his property. He needed another shed because a true Texan can never have enough storage space for all his stuff!
Sure enough, my dad began constructing a new shed on that concrete slab sometime earlier in the year. He made incredible progress on the building all by himself, and he was even able to make use of some long-abandoned building materials from his existing shop. Those orphaned sheets of metal and odd-shaped pieces of lumber scraps were finally being put to use. Which is indeed why he kept all that stuff in the first place. After all, you never know when you'll need a screw collection that would rival a hardware store or a piece of plywood the size of an airport hangar, but by golly you'd better be ready when you do!
And this is where the box of keys comes in. In the vein of true East Texan hospitality, Grandaddy was able to find a donated back door from Uncle Phil, who had just completed renovations on his house and had the spare door that he no longer needed. That was the perfect opportunity for Grandaddy to put the door to use on his new shed. I mean, why buy a new door when you have a perfectly acceptable used one at your disposal? When my dad asked his brother Uncle Phil for the key to the back door, Uncle Phil presented him with that box of keys. Imagine the perplexed look on my dad's face when he received that box! Uncle Phil said to him, "The key to the door should be somewhere in that box. But if you don't find it in there, come back and I'll give you the rest." HA! East Texas at its best!!
Fast forward to Christmas, and Grandaddy presented that box of keys to the bored cousins.
They took turns pulling keys from the box, and then they all walked down to the new shed and began taking turns trying their respective keys on the doorknob. Who would have the matching key?? It became a fun competition with suspense building as each new (very old, actually) key was tried on the door. The funny thing is that Kaitlynn's very first key she tried seemed to be an exact match, prompting huge disappointment from Connor and Ryah. But once Grandaddy took a closer look, we realized that it wasn't a true fit after all.
So the three cousins and Grandaddy continued trying each key, one by one, looking for the perfect fit that could lock and unlock Grandaddy's new (very old) shed door. It was the perfect activity to keep these bored cousins entertained.
But this tale of East Texas shenanigans comes with a disappointing yet mysterious conclusion, because in the end there was no matching key inside that entire box of keys. What an anticlimactic end to the story! Womp, womp.
Nevertheless, we had lots of laughs and got those bored and mischievous cousins out of the house for the afternoon. And Uncle Phil? Well, the kids managed to return the box of keys to their rightful owner in the form of a freshly wrapped Christmas gift, demonstrating yet another favorite East Texan tradition: regifting. Merry Christmas, Uncle Phil!
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