Look what I found in my stocking this year:
A two-day-old baby? It's another Festivus miracle!
Editor's Note: He's very tiny.
This is a conversation my wife recently had with my 3-year-old daughter M- and 6-year-old son D-. M- only touched on the tip of the iceberg, and D- is learning the benefits of spin in public relations:
D- (sweet as sugar and twice as pure): Mom, how many more days until Christmas?
J- (as innocently as he wishes he was): Why?
D-: 'Cause then we get presents!
J-: Oh, yeah, right. Well, 19 days, bud.
M- (helpfully chiming in): D-, we'd better start being good, 'cause I really want presents!
D- (nodding): We have been good...
M- (shaking her head in disbelief): No, no, we haven't!! Remember I drew on you with a marker today??!
I wish you all the best of luck in restraining your own baser natures just long enough to trick Santa into giving you everything you want, but little that you need!
Given the amount of time that passes between posts, and the relative shallowness of those posts over the past year or more, you'd think I'd have more items for this list, but let's pretend I've spent weeks culling these priceless gems from a much more expansive list of nearly-as-high-quality material:
1.While trying to work my legs through some soreness one day, I tried to remember what over-the-top physical activity I'd engaged in the previous day that would have caused such a hearty ache, and then I remembered the sudden, severe, prolonged, multi-muscle leg cramps that assaulted me while sitting too long at the computer armed only with salty snacks and an empty water glass.*
2. Halloween is the opening "fuck you" from the universe to people really seriously beginning to think again about maybe starting to build mildly more healthy habits during the last quarter of the year.
3. You'd think that time served in pregnancy would enlighten women as to the daily struggles of men with freakishly large pot bellies, who aren't blessed with the comforting knowledge that without any planning or effort on their part, that belly will quickly and easily evacuate itself in under a year. Who ties their shoes, gives up seats, or just smiles warmly as they reach for a second family-sized ice cream sundae "for the baby"?
4. Not unlike heroin on a street corner, bacon and cinnamon roll samples at Costco sell themselves.
5. For good reason, people who know what they're doing when remodeling houses make firm plans and schedules (and order all materials) in advance of beginning the project. Actually, this isn't so much an "Amusing Thing" as a "Deep, Deep Regret and Bit of Hard-Earned Understanding".
