Author: Georgia Bailey

For last week’s blog I told a bunch of random non-fictional short stories. This week, I’ll be doing the same.

1. One time, my blind dog, Mai Tai, walked off a sidewalk. Now, you may be wondering, “How is that funny?” I’ll tell you. My mom was walking her on the sidewalk right next to the beach. If you’ve ever been to the beach in MS you’ll know that there’s anywhere from a 1ft-3ft drop from the sidewalk to the sand. Mai Tai walked off the sidewalk and face planted into the sand. For the rest of her life she refused to go on another walk.
2. I used to have a dog named Corona and she was so weird. One time she was sitting on my parents bed (their bed was like 2.5ft off the ground) and she was trying to lick her butt. She fell off the bed trying to lick her butt. She also used to go under the house and for some reason she could like put her snout in an air duct that led to the kitchen (I guess there was a hole) and you could hear her sniffing around. One time (I was 3 or 4) I was in the kitchen and she was under the house, I called out to her and she came to the air vent sniffing away. I shook pepper down the air vent. She started sneezing. This was after I put salt in my chocolate milk and drank it.
   1. My mom named her Corona because she was the same color as the beer. My mom is weird. My other dog, Mai Tai. Her name is an alcoholic drink.
3. I used to have a dog named Clouseau. That’s pronounced like clue so. Little side story, at this point in time we also had a dog named Coffee (he was the color of Coffee. My brother named him. What is up with these names??) and coffee would dig a lot of holes in the yard. To fix this problem, my dad set up an electric fence. The fence scared Coffee. The fence was scared of Clouseau. Clouseau would stand right up against the fence so it was shocking him. He did this all the time. He liked it. He was weird.
4. I used to have a dog named Clarence. Clarence was weird. One time I was chasing Clarence through the house and he was running so fast he literally ripped up a threshold board. Another time I heard a weird noise coming from the living room while I was in the kitchen. I walked into the living room. I found Clarence chewing on an electrical outlet.
5. I have a dog named Roo and she is an absolute a** ****. She’s so rude. She literally plots against you. I swear to god, one day she will take over the world. She will enslave the human race and probably also my brother’s dog. Well anyway, one time I let the dogs outside at around 3am. I had to watch the dogs to make sure they wouldn’t run away because there was a hole in the fence. Little side story, my dog likes to mess with bugs. Anyway, I saw Roo like batting and nipping at the ground and I was like, “there she goes eating bugs again.” Wrong. I then saw this small lump on the ground and thought to myself, “Ah frick, she’s trying to eat a frog.” (we had a LOT of frogs and she would chase them sometimes) I thn proceeded to go get her away from the from because I didn’t want her eating it and getting sick. As I get closer I see her launch this frog thats for whatever reason, tied to a string, across the yard. (she likes to throw things) As I’m watching this frog on a string fly through the air, I noticed a few things. 1. The frog was furry. 2. The frog was grey. 3. The “string” was a tail. 4. The frog was a rat. My dog launched a rat across the yard. She has done this multiple times.

For today’s blog, I’m just going to share a bunch of random gibberish.

1. One time my best friend, Ava, was at my house and my mom made us blueberry smoothies and she spilled it on the couch, the floor, and my dog. We got some hand towels and started wiping it up and got most of it off the couch and floor when I got a op and started mopping the couch and floor. Then my dog walked over covered in smoothie. I looked at the dog. I looked at Ava. I looked back at the dog. I mopped the dog.
2. If you have an Amazon alexa, ask it to fart.
3. My brother’s dog, Napoleon, is a little pig. When we feed the dogs he keeps eating the other dog, Roo’s food. One time my mom caught him doing that and she yelled, “Napoleon you fat f*** quit eating Roo’s food!”
4. I was talking to my mom about Napoleon and I said “he’s a good boy” and my mom replied “did you say he’s a pillsbury doughboy”
5. When I was younger I used to hiss at my brother and his friends. I was really weird. They were scared of me. They were 2-4 years older than me.
6. I was sitting in the kitchen and my brother walked in and looked at me and said “I remember when I caught you eating that stick of butter.” I was like 6 and really liked eating butter. Apparently I had asked my mom to eat some butter and she said no and then went outside. I was alone in the kitchen. I opened the fridge, dragged a chair over, opened the butter penthouse, took a stick of butter, unwrapped it, and started eating it when my brother came into the kitchen and found me eating straight butter. If you’ve seen that girl on tiktok who puts like sriracha sauce on butter and eats it, that was me. Minus the sauce.
7. When I was about five, me, my mom, my brother, my brothers friend, and her mom went to this pizza place and while the moms were still inside paying and talking before we left, Thomas (my brother), Holly (his friend), and I went outside to Holly’s moms car and got in it and were playing around. Our moms were inside talking to the staff people for a good 15-20 minutes so we had some time to make some trouble. Note 1: None of us could drive yet. Note 2: We didn’t want to actually kill anyone. Note 3: We had access to a car and the keys. You may be thinking “Oh god they drove off and killed someone” Close but no. Thomas and Holly came up with this brilliant idea. I hid in the trunk of the car (it was an SUV so the trunk was open to the rest of the car) . Thomas was walking in front of the car as if he was crossing the street. Holly was fake driving the car. We had an amazing opportunity. We ran into the store and dragged out our moms to act out our play. I got in the trunk, Holly got into the driver seat, and Thomas positioned himself outside the car. Holly says “Y’all ready?” Thomas and I yell yes. Holly starts humming (we had all the windows down so our moms could hear everything) Thomas starts walking in front of the car talking about how it’s a beautiful day. Holly goes “Oh no! A person! *BANG*” and Thomas fake falls as if he’s been hit by a car. Holly says “OH-” I stay silent. Holly says, “I said OH-” I stay silent. Thomas stays dead. Holly says, “GEORGIA” and I said “oh, SH**!” and our moms died laughing. Holly wasn’t allowed to curse so she had me do it for her.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget about the gift I got for Christmas when I was four. “Santa” had gotten me a trampoline. It wasn’t one of those small indoor trampolines, it was one of those big outdoor trampolines. Also, it was a full size trampoline so it was huge. Well anyway, I was ecstatic when I found out I had gotten a trampoline. My brother and I used to have a smaller one but our weirdo dog, Tuba, literally ate it. Tuba also somehow ate part of the wall in our house. I don’t remember exactly how he ate a hole in the wall (it wasn’t on a corner, it was on the like actual wall itself) but I think there was a hole in the wall so we could rewire an electrical outlet or something and Tuba stuck his head in the wall and just ate around it. He was a weird dog. We ended up getting rid of him because he was a little bit too weird for us. And destructive.

Enough about Tuba and onto my trampoline. I loved that thing so much, I was always outside on it. I remember one time my brother, Thomas, had his friend, Ashton, over. Ashton lived down the street so he was over all the time. Anyway, Thomas, Ashton, and I were on the trampoline when all of a sudden, this amazing idea came to me. I ran inside and grabbed some liquid soap I had gotten for my birthday or Christmas (I can’t remember which) and I squirted it all over the trampoline. I then proceeded to rub the liquid soap over the entire surface of the trampoline all while slipping and sliding everywhere.

The next story I have of my trampoline is one my brother wanted me to share in a blog. As I woke up one morning, I (like always) begged my brother to go jump on the trampoline with me. He of course said no. He is three years older than me and never wanted to hang out with me. Anyway, after about half an hour of screaming and begging him (I was really annoying and really persistent) during breakfast, he finally agreed, but only for “a little bit.” When we finished eating breakfast, I was so excited. I said something along the lines of, “Ok, let’s go! Come on, let’s go! Hurry up, let’s go!” over and over again. But of course, Thomas had other plans. Plans that had him in the bathroom for an hour or two, stinking up the entire house. When he finally got out of the bathroom, we headed for the trampoline. After a few minutes of jumping, as Thomas landed from one of his jumps, he let out a god forsaken, deadly, terrifyingly loud, burst of wind. I did what anyone whose nose works did. I started gagging. Thomas thought this was funny for whatever reason and decided to continue doing what he had just done. Every time Thomas landed from jumping, the smell got ten times worse. After a couple of seconds, I hung my head off the side of the trampoline and started violently vomiting. The smell had gotten to me. My nose hairs had been burned off. Even the grass around us had wilted from the toxic fumes (not really but still). That day, part of me died.

Note to self (and anyone reading this) never, and I mean NEVER, trust my brother jumping on a trampoline after he gets out of the bathroom.

I should start off by mentioning that during the lockdown, my brother and I got bikes for easter. Mine was baby blue and his was black with orange accents.

This story starts out in the summer of 2020. My best friend, Ava, had come over like she usually did and we were bored. I thought back to this creek at the end of the street and asked if she wanted to go there. She said yes. The only problem was that it was too far to walk. We would have to drive there or ride bikes there. Neither of us could drive and my mom was busy so we couldn’t drive there. We would have rode mine and my brother’s bike there except Ava was too short for my brother’s bike. He was 6’2” and Ava was I think 5’6”. After admitting defeat, I came up with a “brilliant” plan. I had my brother’s old skateboard, my bike, and a cardboard box. (Trust the process). Next, all I needed was some duct tape and rope. (TRUST. THE. PROCESS.). I knew I had some duck tape. I always had duck tape. Don’t ask me why I had a box because I’m not going to tell you (cardboard box house). Next all I needed to get was some rope. I wasn’t sure if we had any rope. I looked through my junk drawer in my room because I usually had some rope laying around. Don’t ask why (I was obsessed with rope when I was little). I didn’t find any rope in my junk drawer so I went to my dads tool supplies which we kept outside. I thought for sure he would have some rope. He didn’t. I ended up settling for some fluffy string I had. No idea why I had it (seriously though, idk man). After I brought back all of the supplies to where Ava was, on the front porch, I got to work. I took the box and duck taped it to the skateboard. Next I tied the skateboard to my bike. (I think you see where this is going.) Next, I took my beautiful creation to the street. Ava got in the box, I got on my bike and started pedaling. The only thing I didn’t account for was when I turned my bike, Ava didn’t. We got about ten feet from where we started before I kept going straight and Ava started tilting to the right. She ended up running into the neighbors red minivan. It was really funny. I was laughing so hard I fell off my bike. I think it’s safe to say we didn’t make it to the creek that day.

Note to those of you who are reading this, don’t be stupid like Ava and me, and crash into your neighbor’s car. Think things through and wear a helmet.

P.S. Ava, if you’re reading this, I’m glad you’re the one who crashed, not me 🙂

I used to have this rascal of a dog named Clarence. He was a tan Shar-Pei with lots of wrinkles. For this blog I’m going to tell a story involving Clarence. He was my favorite dog.

A little sidestory, Clarence loved going on walks and car drives. He loved going out as much as he possibly could, but it wasn’t enough so he started escaping. During this time period, we couldn’t figure out how Clarence was escaping all the time. He would escape about twice a week. Finally, I took him on a leash in the backyard and walked him across the fence and he weaseled his way through some broken boards. After Clarence had walked through the fence I tried getting him to come back through it but he wouldn’t budge. I ended up tying the leash to the fence, walking all the way around the house, untying the leash, and then walking back around the house with Clarence. He was such a rascal. After I put Clarence back inside, I took some spare wood we had, some nails, and a hammer, and fixed the hole in the fence. Then I took Clarence back around the fence to find any more holes and to my surprise, there were more behind our small vineyard. Even though now Clarence couldn’t escape through holes in the fence, he always tried dashing out of the front door whenever someone would open it. It was really annoying.

Now for the main story. One day I was 12 and my brother was 15. I think it was a Friday during the summer, my mom, my brother, and I were about to leave to go to the bank. As we were about to walk out the front door, my mom was on the phone with a client as she’s a realtor. I had my phone in my hand and my satchel on my body, and my brother was standing there with nothing in his hands. As Thomas, my brother, opened the door, I said to him, “Watch out for Clarence!” but I was too late. Clarence had already darted out the door and had turned right to go down the street. Thomas immediately started chasing after Clarence while I threw my phone to the ground and ripped off my bag leaving it with my phone as I ran after Thomas and Clarence. Thomas had gotten a good 15-20 feet in front of me by the time I had started running. About 5 yards later, I started to pass Thomas and I screamed back at him, “Ha! I’m faster than you!” For years Thomas would always make a big stink that he was faster than me. After I said that, Thomas yelled back at me, “That’s because I’m wearing flip flops!” and we continued running while I was getting further and further ahead of him. What he didn’t hear me respond to was, “I’m in flip flops too!” Finally about half a mile up the street, I caught Clarence because he stopped to sniff some flowers. I grabbed hold of him and waited for Thomas to walk up. When he finally caught up to me, all I heard him say was “oh” before I cut him off and told him to hold the dog. I then proceeded to go to a nearby plant which was very viney, pluck the longest vine, and use that as a leash to walk Clarence back to the house. A few seconds after I started walking Clarence back to the house with my makeshift leash, my mom pulled up in her car and we all piled in. Thomas then said to our mom, “So we were running and I got a head start, right? Well Georgia started to pass me up and he was like, “Ha! I’m faster than you” and I was like, “That’s because I’m in flip flops!” and as I finally catch up to Georgia, I see she’s” wearing flip flops too.”

Note to self (and everyone who’s reading this) even though your siblings may be older, stronger, and bigger than you, you may still be able to outrun them and shove it in their face.

I remember when I was eight years old, I had been home sick from school for about a week when my mom had decided to bring me to the doctors because I wasn’t getting any better. A couple days before she brought me, I had told my dad that I wished we lived in a one story house because it was really tiring to go up the stairs. He thought I was just being lazy. The day before my mom brought me to the doctors, I told her the same thing and she thought I had walking pneumonia. We got to the doctors and he asked a lot of questions and ran a test and came back to us and told us I had Type 1 Diabetes. I remember my mom asking if it was fatal and I had no idea what that meant. The doctor said something along the lines of, “It can be if you don’t treat it right.” My mom immediately started bawling her eyes out while I sat there with a smile on my face. The dr had given us some time alone in the room and my mom had called my dad to come meet us at the doctors office. I remember she called my dad while crying and said something along the lines of, “Tom, it’s an emergency you need to get to the doctors office now.” and he came right after they got off the phone. After he arrived, the dr explained to both my parents in more detail about what was going on and he said that we needed to go to a hospital in the next state over (Alabama) and pack enough clothes for about a week. He said when we arrived there we had to go to the ER and tell them I have Type 1 Diabetes and needed immediate medical attention. He also specifically said not to tell them I had just been diagnosed. 

After what seemed like forever, I was finally called to be seen. They took me down to the room I was assigned and started an IV drip of saline. The nurses didn’t put it in right so it hurt a lot. After being in the ER for about 2-3 hours, I was transferred to the ICU. The dr at the ER said I would most likely be in the ICU for about a week but I was only there for one day because my body bounced back so quickly. They also said if I would have waited a day or two longer to go to the doctor, I would have died. The rest of the week I was in a normal hospital room and had nurses coming to check my blood sugar every hour. It was exhausting. I remember turning on the TV at one point while my dad was in the shower and Jaws came on. My mom let me watch it and by the time my dad came out of the shower, I had been watching it for about 15 minutes. He told me to turn it off because it was a “scary movie” and I told him he was crazy and it wasn’t scary at all. My mom kept screaming throughout the movie which I thought was really funny.

After a week of being in the hospital, my brother who was back home staying with a friend got sick. He had pneumonia. Because of that, the doctor discharged me early so we could go home and take care of my brother. I was healthy enough to go home but she wanted to keep us for a few more days to teach us about my diabetes. When I finally got to go back to school, I had been out for about a month. Maybe longer.

To the people who are reading this, make sure you never ignore the symptoms presenting. You may end up with a life threatening autoimmune disease.

Have you ever had a sleepover that lasted for an entire week? Well I have. Way back in second grade, 11 years ago, my best friend Dannica was in the middle of moving houses so she came to stay with me at my house for a week. It was the best week ever. We had so much fun. She even brought her dog Rosie. I remember when she first arrived, the first thing we did was set up Rosie’s little pen thingy and instead of putting her in the pen, we put her on the kitchen table. I should probably also mention that Rosie was a teacup chihuahua so she fit on the table perfectly. When we brought Rosie outside to go to the bathroom, we had to bring her on a leash because she was so small she would fit right through the fence boards. At the time, the two dogs my family already owned, Clouseau and Mai-Tai, would always go to the bathroom in this one spot in the yard which ended up killing all the grass in that one spot. Mai-Tai had an excuse. She was blind so she didn’t want to go far in the yard. I think. I don’t really remember, it’s been a while. Clouseau was just a lazy, raggedy old dog so he would go to the bathroom in that one spot and then dart off running across the yard. After a while, my dad had enough of the dead grass and got some grass patch thingies from the hardware store to put down. The dogs killed them. Next he got more grass patches and he also got some little fencing. He did all of this before Dannica and her mom were staying with us but that’s not the point. The point is, there was a little fenced in space small enough for Rosie to not escape and to go to the bathroom but there was one problem. Dogs weren’t allowed in it. I of course ignored that and told Dannica to put Rosie in the little fenced in grassed area. As we went back inside and I thought we got away with it, we walked into the living room and my dad had called me back into the kitchen. I had been caught.

While Dannica was staying at my house I had this huge dry erase board that you would see at a school on the wall. My mom brought it home one day from god knows where. I loved it. Dannica and I had fun using it to practice our spelling words every night when my dad would call them out to us. We would sit on little plastic stools and swap out our markers for a new color for every word.

When it finally came time for Dannica and her mom to leave, Dannica and I were so sad. We had so much fun together. We loved being able to be in the same class together at school and then being able to go home together afterwards. It was all so much fun.

For those of you who think soulmates are lovers, they may be. But they can also be your best friends. I’m very lucky to have met Dannica in 1st grade and to still be friends with her and I hope we will remain friends for the rest of our lives.

Do you remember back in like 2019 when on TikTok there was that sound that went like, “ayo best friend check”? Well I just randomly remembered that. Anyway this time I’m writing about one of my friends who doesn’t get enough credit. His name is Aiden. We go way back. We go so far back that my other best friend, Ava, who I’ve been friends with for 10 years gets jealous because I’ve been friends with Aiden for longer.

I should probably start off with how we met but honestly, the story starts waaayy before that. Years ago our dads met in school and quickly became friends. Luckily they stayed friends throughout the years and as life went on and they got married, they were still friends. Aiden’s dad, Mr. Rich and my dad had grown up in New Orleans, Louisiana. After getting married and having kids, my dad moved with our family to Gulfport, Mississippi and Mr. Rich moved with his family to I think Daphne, Alabama. Even though we were an entire state away, we still made time to visit each other. Aiden and I were always stuck to each other like glue because we got along so well and we were only a few months apart.

One of my favorite memories of visiting Aiden was when I was about 5 years old, we were over at Aiden’s house visiting and I was chasing him through his house. As we were running through his dining room I suddenly stopped and asked him what was on the kitchen table. It was this weird brown miniature house with candy and white frosting all over it. I had never seen one before. He told me it was a gingerbread house. That was the day I learned what a gingerbread house was.

Sadly, Aiden and I lost contact for about six years and our families didn’t visit each other at all during those times but recently over the summer we reconnected. I had learned that Aiden and his family had moved to New Orleans and he had learned that my parents had started getting a divorce. We’ve seen each other two more times since the summer but it still hasn’t been enough to fully reconnect. However, what I will say is that when Aiden and I saw each other for the first time in six years over the summer, it was so freaking awkward. After a bit of talking it was like we had spent no time apart. Now we text every couple of days to check in with each other and make sure we’re doing ok.

For those of you who are reading this, please check in with your friends. Especially long distance friends. Don’t let yourself go too long without talking to your friends. Even if your only form of communication is by mailing letters, do it. Don’t let anything get in the way of your friendship.

Yes, you read the title right. The Get-Along t-shirt. You may be wondering, “What on earth is a Get-Along t-shirt” or you may be thinking “omg omg omg I had one of those!!!!” Well for those of you who already know what it is or had one growing up, sit back and enjoy the ride. For those of you who think I’m insane, (I probably am) let me explain.

Growing up, my brother and I were always arguing and getting into fights. These fights were usually physical fights. While my brother was big and buff, I was (as my dad likes to call me) a little shrimp. My brother was almost always about 12 inches taller than me so if he even breathed on me I would fall over. I quickly learned about this and took this to my advantage. If he even so much as touched me, I would start screaming and crying just to make sure he would get in trouble. I was a nightmare of a younger sister. Basically I would go up to my brother, screaming and kicking him and he couldn’t do anything about it or else he would get in trouble. (And I always wondered why he hated me.)

I remember one year for Christmas my brother and I got an xbox 360 to share and we were both so excited. The thing is, on top of that, I also got an iPad mini and my brother didn’t. My brother didn’t think this was fair. Our parents said this was because he was most likely always going to be using the xbox and I was never going to get a chance to use it (which turned out to be true) but he didn’t like that answer.

After Christmas was over and the Xbox was set up, my brother was stuck to it like glue. He would never let me have a turn. There were games which were split screen but he wouldn’t let me play with him as he claimed “It makes the game harder to play and you’re bad at the game.” Years later I’ve found out he was right about the game making it harder when it’s on split screen mode but he could have set it to east mode.

After getting us an xbox and iPad to distract ourselves from each other didn’t work, my mom resorted to other measures. My brother and I had been in the kitchen arguing about the xbox, yet again. Our mom had had enough and went upstairs to our dads wardrobe and got one of his shirts and brought it back downstairs and made both of us get in it. She called it the get along T-shirt. My brother hated the idea while I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I had to stand on my toes and on a stool just to peek my eyes out of the neck of the shirt while my brother stood there wearing it normally.

When all else fails, clothing might just work. And remember kids, don’t drive you mother insane like I did to mine.

For this blog I was completely stumped about what to write. I had not a single clue. No ideas were popping into my head when finally at lunch today I said to my friend Iris, “Iris, I have a blog due today and it has to be 400-600 words long and I have no idea what to write about,” she told me to write about not knowing what to write about. This led me to thinking, “How the heck do I do that?” Well we have to start from the beginning.

It all started when I first heard we would be writing a blog once a week. I thought to myself, “That is going to be the death of me” because I tend to have some major writer’s block. I remember thinking about what I was going to write my first blog about and I absolutely couldn’t not think of anything. It was as if my mind had become a barren desert wasteland and ideas were like water. Scarce. I had begun searching online for ideas of what to write a blog on but the only things that were popping up were things like “writing about a goal you have and how you plan to achieve it” or “writing about debunking a myth.” Seeing as I couldn’t find anything interesting online I began asking my friends for ideas. It was the middle of the school day and all my friends were at school except for one so I could only ask him. Trent. TrentyPoo. Trenton John Brazier. You may be asking yourself why I would list his full name? Well, that’s in case you want to stalk him. You never know if I put his real name or not.

Trent gave me some good ideas. But they weren’t good enough. He told me to tell stories of my dog. I shoved that to the back of the filing cabinet. He told me to write about how he always gets on my nerves. While that would be funny, I just don’t think it would be long enough. He gave me a few other ideas but I don’t remember them so I’ll move on.

Next was my mother. I asked my mother what I should write about and of course she said my dog. For those of you who haven’t already noticed from my blog, Dog Days, I’m completely obsessed with my dog. Once again, I shoved the idea of writing about my dog to the back of the filing cabinet. I asked for a few other ideas and she gave them to me. While I don’t remember them, I do remember thinking about asking my brother but then remembering that he would get back to me in about 4-6 brother days (aka whenever he saw the text or whenever he felt like responding) so I decided not to text him. HOWEVER, thinking about texting him did spark an idea. It reminded me of us arguing a lot when we were younger. (I just thought of what I’m going to write about next) and then I remembered him trapping me in a hole.

And remember kids, when worse comes to worse and your big brother traps you in a hole and years down the road you write a blog about it, just remember a snake could have been in that hole with you! 🙂

Nah but anyway, all’s well that ends well and don’t forget to ask for help when you need it. Don’t just sit there in a slump til the very last minute, reach out and ask for help.