My son has suddenly decided that he wants to draw pictures all the time. Mostly, he’s been sketching pumpkins, bats, ghosts, and tombstones in preparation for Halloween. Last night he asked for more spooky ideas so I told him to try his hand at a witch.
He didn’t know where to start, so I quickly drew my interpretation. Don’t worry, I won’t quit my day job. After I saw how bad it looked, I asked his dad to give it a try.
Then our son asked us if all witches have penises.
I have been known, on occasion, to get a serious case of the giggles. My husband says it isn’t so much giggling as it is cackling, but I prefer to think of myself as demure. Mostly because I prefer lies.
A few nights ago, my daughter taped one of my laughing fits. Ironically, I was laughing this hard because she wasn’t laughing. I kept saying, “How can you not think this laughing is hilarious?” Because, clearly, it was. You can’t see me, but you can hear me. You can definitely hear me.
See? Demure.
Because I think a good chuckle is good for the soul I’m sharing some of my recent favorites from Twitter, and by recent I mean from the last year. I’m 42; February was recent. Enjoy.
I like Little Miss Muffet. She's got a whey about her.
— Alec Sulkin (@thesulk) September 1, 2013
Finally on plane leaving South Bend airport. I now know how they felt at the end of Argo.
— Jim Gaffigan (@JimGaffigan) August 30, 2013
Can't get a Choco Taco at a Taco Bell anymore, but people still ask me to fax them documents. This is not progress.
— Roo Ciambriello (@roociambriello) August 16, 2013
Pregnant cousin who says she will NEVER have an epidural or c-section says she also will never, ever, ever dye her hair. *grabs popcorn*
— Leah, agirlandaboy (@agirlandaboy) August 29, 2013
herringbone, two kinds of stripes, lace, floral, and my pants are staple-hemmed. bet I get a raise today.
— keply (@MmeSurly) August 27, 2013
Stuck on the side of the road really regretting replacing my spare tire with an emergency cheese wheel.
— Nathan Buckley (@duplicitron) July 24, 2013
If you put your hospital gown on backwards and wander into the lobby the doctors will let you stay another night.
— Nathan Buckley (@duplicitron) June 27, 2013
I love that Dora's mom is such a steadfast free range parent. Yet, part of me wants to scream YOUR BABY'S ALONE IN THE WOODS WITH A MONKEY!
— Arnebya Herndon (@whatnowandwhy) June 18, 2013
Really enjoying this "I don't care if you live or die, I need a ride to my friend's house" stage my kids are going through.
— Vi King (@TheBlessMess) June 17, 2013
Apparently when I say "HURRY!!!!!", my son hears "carefully assess".
— Alissa Enders (@AlissaEnders) March 28, 2013
Be a writer, kids! Have unfinished homework until you die!
— Annabel Oakes (@annabeloakes) February 13, 2013
I hope you cackled.
Last week, my husband dropped off some homegrown tomatoes at my mom’s house and she asked him to look at her dog’s belly, where she had felt something…odd. When he came home he said, “There’s something wrong with your mom’s dog. He has some weird growth on his stomach. I looked at it and it’s the strangest thing. It feels like a pencil.”
My mom, who is more attached to her dog than she is to her crossword puzzles – and that’s really saying something – called me the next day in tears. “Did you hear about Cappy? He has this hard growth and I don’t know what it is. I’m taking him to the vet tomorrow.”
Because it’s easy for me and my Zoloft to say, I reassured her. “Mom, don’t worry about it until you talk to the vet. It could just be a cyst. Blue had a whole bunch of them and they were nothing.” This didn’t do anything to alleviate her fears.
That evening I went to her house for dinner and offered to take a look at this thing. I was prepared to be grossed out because my sister had looked too, and she mentioned that it had an open sore.
But, it turned out that all the people who had already touched this thing were the ones who were grossed out, because that growth that felt like a pencil and had an opening – the growth that my mom, sister and husband had examined and touched? It was the dog’s penis.
And I will never let them live it down.
My husband is having a stressful week. I think he’s over-analyzing a situation and has nothing to worry about, and he thinks I’m glib and annoying. Toe-MAY-toe, toe-MAH-toe.
The problem is that when you’ve been with someone for 18 years (our relationship is officially an adult!) their pain becomes your pain; it’s like you’re stressed-out by proxy, but in our case my husband is feeling queasy and I am eating all the guacamole.
I have some experience with this anxiety stuff. Just ask my fingernails, my waistline, and my bar bill. What I don’t have experience with is someone I love going through it. I talk to strangers all day long for a living, but I have no idea what to say to my soul-mate other than, “Pass the chips.”
What I cling to is knowing that the most horrible, poop-inducing, anxiety-ridden moments of my life resulted in something great. Two premature births, all of my son’s surgeries, and speaking at a keynote in front of roughly 4,000 people stand out in my mind, but they were all necessary and wonderful in the grand scheme of things.
Shaking Like a Leaf at the Voices of the Year Community Keynote, BlogHer ’11
These events have taught me one very important lesson; good stuff happens to those who don’t die of dehydration from their nervous poops. So, see? I am not glib. I put forethought into donning my rose-colored glasses.
Even if my husband wants nothing more than to rip them off my face and throw them into the street.
Follow
Email
Follow