When I lived in NE Portland a very small market, a block away, would advertise great buys on a large sign on their street side window. Almost every time I purchased items the price I was charged was incorrect. At first I wondered if I’d remembered seeing the price on the shelf wrong but when I was charged more than any other store in town for apples, and they were the special of the week and advertised on the window sign I knew I’d remember the price correctly. I went back in.
The clerk looked surprised EVERY TIME I returned with this information. He’d insist the price on the receipt was right, I’d point to the sign, he’d be surprised it was there, have to decide whether he should honor it or not, be flustered, I was causing problems but he was stoic, he took a long time with the math, and do things on the cash register, redo them, and recount the money. He’d get angrier by the minute because I was holding up the customecurs in line. I understand he was worse to any uppity kid who could do math.
In my book Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble, Grace and her Grandad confronted this clerk but had an interesting solution to the problem.  nancymauerman.com

I saw a commercial on TV for a cold remedy where, at the very end, the man recommending the product announces his name as Ted Karcus. Sometimes when I have a cold along about the third day I’m thinking, “I logically know I won’t DIE but I can’t remember what it felt like to be well; I FEEL LIKE I’M GOING TO DIE.” This is the point in my mortal existence when I’m suppose to remember a guy named CARCUS wants me to feel better? Is that his stage name or did his Daddy give it to him, and who, making the commercial, told him to say his name?
Naming things and people is interesting, for instance would you like to borrow money from someone named Teddy Cash or Don Foreclosure? Lief Forever sells coffins, Art Bark is an exterminator; that’s better than Hugh Needs Anewhouse. There’s a weight Loose pill sold by Lotta Biggs.
In my book, which is free for a few days, as an E book at Amazon, A Grandfather UNSHOPS! This is a fascinating concept. John invented it and has used it in two radically different forms; both are illustrated and explained in the story, Gracie’s Grandfather makes Trouble. The results of his unshopping sometimes caused a strong a reaction from his victims,. A reaction as strong as a laxative sold by Gwen N. Bearrit would have.  nancymauerman.com

John and I both like snakes but in a family where one person loves snakes as much as the other hates them; most anything could happen. John would never get rid of items of mine he was tired of but the in the book, Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble, someone looking very much like John does, and in a very entertaining way.  nancymauerman.com

Amy, standing outside our closed door, rings the doorbell and barely hears it, it being a loud fog horn instead of a bell tone. She does hear something very clearly; John. He’s also inside the house and screams in surprise! On the way to the door Formica Dinnette, our cat, lunges out of her tunnel and John screams again, leaving him stumbling.
We three females have enjoyed the show as John is still clutching at his chest. We decide that all that deep breathing and accelerated heart activity is probably as beneficial to him as a good run around the block and we’re well pleased. He’s still gasping for air.  nancymauerman.com

We ate dinner in three minutes flat! Our technique was perfect; backs straight, no elbows on the table, no eating with mouths open, or speaking with them full. My father was a fast eater so Don, my brother, and I saw this as a virtue and devised and traded ideas on how to accomplish this skill too.. And
Load up fork, insert in mouth, bite the bit in half, push to right side while loading another fork, insert, bite, push to left, fill middle mouth and chew. While chewing, swallow the small to medium sizes until mouth is mostly empty, then repeat.
My mother was not impressed, she cooked from scratch and dinner took at least an hour to prepare Then she made a fresh dessert every day. She made our bread; an all day job.
I know it took us exactly three minutes to eat because we came the dinner table at exactly six every evening. The television was not allowed to be on although Don and I had a favorite program that starting at four minutes past six. We ate, Mom and I cleared away the dishes, cut and served desert, swallowed it, and Don and I never missed the first minute of that show.
John likes the television on as we eat and I still eat too fast unless I sew on a quilt. I’m finally slowing down and enjoying my meals. And In the winter, when the light is dim I wear a tiara.  nancymauerman.com

You hate them from the topmost hair on your head to six feet into your dirt below your feet. Oh yes, you love the snake lover you married but not those awful slithery things; and there are three of them, living in your house!
It’s no good pretending they’re not there because everywhere you look you see fake ones; on table tops, hanging from the ceiling on strings, painted on juice cups, breakfast bowls and standing in a row around the flowers you brought home, every one reminding you.
What is Gracie’s Grandfather to do?
Read Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble found on Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

In massage school I learned we have memory cells running through our muscles, which slapped me up side the head of my understanding, because I can be shown how to follow a set of instructions five times in a row and not remember until I DO them!

Children read body language before they can read words on a page so instead of telling the reader what kind of person Paul is, in Dragon’s Tale we see it.
His sister, Anna, says, ‘”She just flew down out of the sky and never went home!”
Paul’s eyes looked up at the ceiling and he said shaking his head, “Anna doesn’t know what’s real and what’s fiction.’
Soon Paul ‘shot his arm straight up in the air, like a tree rocking in the wind. “Waiter!” he called out. “We’re ready for dessert!”‘
This is a lot more fun than me telling you Paul is independent and feeling very mature.  nancymauerman.com

“I Wouldn’t marry me.” John told me when I enjoyed how different he was from normal, “I could do better.”
In my book, “Dragon’s Tale” Paul is sometimes fascinated, pleased, or concerned at his sister’s thinking process, which is very different.
In the story Paul’s treating his family at Doe Doe Doughnuts and tells his sister that her dragon, Iva Lou, is not invited, “…especially if she eats doughnuts with worms on them and you can’t get them that way!”
To which Paul’s sister Anna replies, “Can too…In France. She also likes worms poked in the middle with pretzel sticks.”
“Well she’s not invited. I don’t have enough ,money.” says Paul.
“Oh, she’ll buy her own…She gets money from inside clothes closets. When bad guys are sleeping she steals back the money they stole.”
And my John said, “I could do better than me, and I did.”  nancymauerman.com

“Did that really happen?” called out Paul.
“Of course.” said Mother and brought Anna a drink.
“But dragons aren’t real are they?” said Paul.
“Oh, maybe not, but I don’t know. I believe in all kinds of things I haven’t seen yet.”
This is a page from Dragon’s Tale, offered as a free E book this week. I hope you enjoy it.  nancymauerman.com

In my book, If Mrs Greeby Asks, a little girl struggles with child abuse alone because she can’t tell her mother and doesn’t yet believe in God. God does guide her as she has a sense of trust in her mother when it looks her mother appeared to be trying to kill her.  nancymauerman.com