A few months ago, my husband started a new job. His office isn’t particularly close to our house though. Because of that distance, and for various other reasons, I had never gone to visit his new digs with the kids. None of those reasons being that I was hoping to drop 20 pounds before meeting his new co-workers.

But, today he asked that we come up so I could hang some pictures for him and so he could introduce us to the people he hangs out with all day long.

I did my best to make the kids look presentable, I flat-ironed my hair, made up my face, and spent a half hour deciding what to wear. Though, that outfit turned out to NOT be good enough, so I stopped at a department store on the way to his office to buy a new shirt.

After we parked, I wiped off my son’s face and made sure my daughter’s hair wasn’t sticking out in all the wrong places.

But, I forgot to tell my son not to make comments about what people look like.

The first person we saw was the middle-aged receptionist, to whom my son quickly referred to as, “Grandma”.

And, the second person we met was a lovely lady whose face my son crept close to, then he looked her in the eye and said, “You have a little, little, little mole.”

I should’ve known that with my kid around, the least of my worries would be what I looked like.

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Among our group of friends, I am lovingly referred to as a “one-upper”. Someone tells a story, and I come back with something to top it.

If you reflect on the time you were driving in a snowstorm, I will tell you a story about walking through a blizzard and not being able to see two feet in front of me. If you were rear-ended by a car, I’ll tell you about the time I was hit by a semi.

My two favorite words in conversation are, “That’s nothing.” But really, a girl can’t help it if she’s that irritating interesting.

But, my husband is the master competitor. It doesn’t take much to get him defensive either. If you could declare a winner in conversation, he’d be sure to snag the gold medal. Though that medal would come at the expense of the other person. A person who ends up an exhausted heap on the floor crying, “Uncle! For the love of bacon…UNCLE!”

Last night, the two of us went to a concert. I had been painting and scraping wallpaper all day (You’ve scraped wallpaper? I’ve scraped nine layers.) and barely made myself presentable before running out the door. When we got to the stadium, I realized I had forgotten to put my wedding ring on.

As I do a hundred times a day, I went to rub my thumb against my rings. Only I didn’t feel metal, just bare skin. I turned to my husband and said, “Aw! I forgot to put my rings on! I rub them all the time and it feels so weird when they’re missing”.

He asked, “You rub them?”

I said, “Yeah. Not consciously, but I rub them all the time.”

He replied, “Well, I do this…”. And then he turned into Mr. Competitive, and licked his wedding band.

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The other day, my husband was wearing one of his many Dallas Cowboys t-shirts. Our six year old son was sitting on his lap, touching the star emblem.

My husband looked down, then asked, “Is that your favorite football team?”

Our boy nodded and said, “Yeah…because I like cows.”

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We just got back from a weekend at an amusement park on the Lake Erie shore. That’s right. My husband is the type of guy who spends his Father’s Day schlepping kids around a hot, sticky, crowded park just so he can watch them smile. (Insert “Aw” here.)

This particular park has an indoor roller coaster that my daughter really wanted to ride, so I volunteered to take her. The waiting line weaved through a building illuminated with black-lights.

Upon entering, everyone wearing white tennis shoes and shirts began to glow. People had florescent eyeballs and when they smiled it was with neon teeth.

I, however, wasn’t wearing anything white. Instead the black-light revealed dirt…all over my shirt. Dirt and amusement park grime which had not been visible outside. It looked like I had removed my top, laid it on the ground and let my six year old stomp all over it.

Because I had been holding my son earlier, every mark from his sandals was imprinted like bad graphics. There were marks from roller coaster seat-belts, and shoulder restraints too.

So, while everyone else was positively glowing, I felt contaminated ala Meryl Streep in Silkwood.

I have always thought that the shower after an amusement park visit is the best shower you can take. Now I don’t just think it…I know it.

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