The Adventures of Rachel Knecht -- Girl Sleuth

Titles and brief plot summaries of future books I plan to write once I turn my life into a teenage mystery series:

1.) The Mystery of the Amway Sellers for Jesus - The apartment across the way from mine appears to be vacant. I never see anyone come in or out. But about once a month a group of people show up, turn on all the lights, open the blinds, and stand around and sing. I always just assumed they were a roving band of beat-niks or something but then yesterday when I was coming back from the laundry room I saw that the lights were on in the apartment and inside was one guy with a guitar and several others with their hands in the air. Okay, now we're getting somewhere...they're a praise team. But then Katie went down to the laundry room a few hours later and reported back that they were now watching a dvd and she thought that maybe they were selling Amway. Mystery! I will solve this case by convincing Flo that I need to get into the apartment (possibly by tossing something valuable onto their balcony - like a tub of ice cream.) And then hide out in a closet until their next meeting, (definitely a tub of ice cream. I could live off of ice cream for a month, right?) and them casually step out with my tambourine once the singing begins and make friends in order to get more information. (Note to Self: Remember to toss tambourine into the balcony with the ice cream).

2.) The Adventure of the Killer Dragon Flies: As I was aging 50 years in traffic this morning I noticed that there was a swarm of dragon flies buzzing above the cars that were not moving on the freeway. I initially thought, "How cute," and was grateful for the uplifting sight because I was about to drive my car off the road and into the Wal-Mart parking lot below (except that I couldn't actually move my car because, did I mention, we were not moving). But then I noticed that they weren't so much buzzing as they were dive bombing. There were probably about 15 of them and they looked a little angry. Probably because they too had to get off on Grand and then found out that the Grand exit was mysteriously closed. I will have to hire a insect loving person to solve this one as I do not like bugs. Oh, and talk to Cal-Trans about the exit sitch.

3.) The Case of the Missing Zipper Foot: I pulled out my sewing machine the other day and discovered that the zipper foot was not there. And as the zipper foot has only one place where it would be my only guess is the World's Largest Collection of Felt got its hands on it and is holding it hostage. But a girl can't wait for a ransom note forever so I went on the hunt for a zipper foot. And no one had one! Where did all the zipper feet go? I know that fancy sewing machines require fancy feet but mine is a pretty standard one and I've seen loads of machines that have similar foot attachment thingies and I just assumed that a place like Joann's Fabric, a store that has a sewing machine accessory wall, would have a universal zipper foot. But none of them did. I finally had to go to the Joann's Super Store that had a Viking outlet (where I kind of wished the sales ladies had been dressed up as actual vikings) and convince them that even though I don't have a fancy sewing machine I still deserved to put in zippers. So they plugged their noses and rummaged through what essentially looked like a trash drawer and found one for me. But that still does not answer what has happened to all the zipper feet. I'll have to contact the Zipper Foot Council of America or something.

4.) The Case of Rachel and the Rednecks. How is it that a booming metropolis like Los Angeles can produce so many rednecks? Or is it the fair that turns otherwise high class people into beer swilling, cleavage exposing, butt scratching, turkey leg gnawing hicks? You know my deep love for the fair. Every bit of it is great, even the hordes of people. But I felt slightly assaulted by the amount of redneckedness I saw there on Saturday. Now it was 180 degrees with a billion percent humidity so I can understand how some girls would think it appropriate to dust off the old tube top. But Knights of Columbus I saw a lot of cleavage that day. I'd like to blame Fontana but I think I will need to go back to the fair to get to the bottom of this. And possibly ride the Big Yellow Slide a few more times. You know...for research.