Did you know

I used to live in a fifth wheel trailer?

Yup, I did.

My 8th grade year. You know the saying, "What doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger." This is one of those things. While it sucked living through it, it is now one of my favorite stories to tell. Most of the time no one believes me. My mom asked me the other day...

"Does it embarrass you to talk about it?"

"Heck, no, I love it."

And I do. It's funny. I'm sure for her, as a single parent of three daughters, it was probably one of the worst times of her life. However, we were young and quite resilient.

Wanna hear a lil about it? Okay, good. Be prepared.

This fifth wheel was old. And I mean old. Not one of those fancy shmancy kinds with plumbing or a microwave or heat or any of those frivolous items. It had a bathroom, just not plumbed for water.

There was a little stove where my mom was able to make us Helper Helper. I believe I've told you about that before. Helper Helper is Hamburger Helper without the hamburger. Meats expensive, don'tcha know?

Remember the old Halloween buckets from McDonald's that were orange with the black scary face?

Yep, that was the bathroom.

We had an upstairs, well, it consisted of two stairs leading to the bed my mom and I shared. I don't think we could sit up all the way without hitting our heads.

My sisters slept on the benches where the table was and during the night one of them (usually Meg) would usually fall off and hit the floor.

Okay, there was heat or there was supposed to be heat. It was propane and the pilot light would constantly blow out, so we'd most often wake up with it being about 17 degrees in the trailer.

Our trailer was parked in my aunt's driveway and we were allowed to shower there but that was it and we were usually afraid to do that, so, I'm thinking hygiene wasn't at the top of our list.

It was some of the most awful times we've been through but I remember laughing and having fun. I remember my mom trying to make everything special. I remember that even though it was chaos, we had a routine. I remember that we put FUN in dysfunctional.

Even though we weren't yet attending church or following the Lord, He saw us through. He provided the next place to live. Which is another post altogether.

Times get bad, man. They do. But He's never farther than our next prayer.

Hope you got a chuckle out of one of my favorite memories. I need to have my sisters write their version, they remember so much better than I do even though they were younger. If I ever get them to do it, I'll post their story.

Have a good one!