Humor

It all started when I learned how to haggle.

It was our first date. It would also be our last. The lanky creature sitting across from me, a police officer with 31 years of life experience to my 20, had just delivered a startling confession.
 “What do you like to do?” he asked.
 “Musical theater!” I told him. “I perform in a Broadway review troupe at school.”
 His eyes looked like the empty bubbles on a standardized test sheet, registering none of the above. “Musical theater,” he said. “I have no idea what that is.”

Ladies, I have a bone to pick with you. That TV show “Hoarders” came out a year ago, and you didn’t say a word. While I’ve been fretting about my failures on the housekeeping front and frantically lecturing my husband in Housekeeping 101 (“Just because ‘floor’ rhymes with ‘drawer’ ... ”), you sat in amused and knowing silence, with the perfect prescription clutched in your cagey little mitts: “Take two episodes of ‘Hoarders’ and call me in the morning.” That’s all you had to say.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who get cold sores, and those who recoil in horror and shriek, “Oh my GOD! What happened to your lip?!”

I’ll tell you what happened. I took seven boys under the age of 6 to Chuck E. Cheese in Rivergate, and Mount Kilauea erupted at the corner of “Our pleasure!” and “We really enjoyed it.”

A cold sore never lies.

Two old biddies sit gossiping on a garden bench in their retirement community courtyard. One leans in and says with a sly whisper, “Did you get a load of the rock Edna’s wearing? It’s huge.”

“A bit gaudy if you ask me,” replies the other.

“Well, that’s Harold for you.”

“Harold was never ostentatious!”

“No, I mean the ring is Harold. Edna had it made from his remains.”

You know that expression “It’s like riding a bicycle.”?

Well it wasn’t.

When a friend surprised us by teaching our son to ride a bike, we thought the hard part was over. Our trip to Shelby Park was meant to be a follow-up ride, a chance for Gus to show off his amazing new skills.

He straddled his bike with his helmet perched atop his head like a  giant mushroom.

“I can’t do it,” he said.

“Just take a deep breath,” we told him, “and push off with your foot.”

My sister-in-law, who is pregnant for the first time, emailed yesterday to say she’d arrived at work wearing two different kinds of shoes. “Just be glad you remembered to wear shoes,” I told her. “Believe it or not, it’s a good sign.” She then confessed to drinking a glass of milk that morning and returning the glass to the cupboard unwashed. “Luckily,” she said. “I remembered what I’d done right away.”

Welcome to motherhood. Here, every memory, however scant, is a noble and exciting victory.

When it comes to kids, there is no such thing as a quick question.

There are quick questions. Plural. Many. More. Multiple. Rounds and rounds of questions, fired at your head in rapid succession like shots from an AK-47.

“Could You Pass a Driving Test?” the colorful web banner taunted. Huh? Huh? Couldya? Could I pass a driving test? Pff. Please. I am a seasoned driver.

While my inner Valedictorian smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt, cracked her dainty knuckles, and braced for the customary ace, I clicked over to the Web site and quickly answered all 18 official driving test questions.

And failed.

Miserably! My final score was a pitiful 56 percent.

Is it just me, or is everyone missing the point of Valentine’s Day? Year after year, I hear the same old complaints.

— Wahh, our favorite restaurant is booked.
— Wahh, I can’t believe I’m still single.
— Wahh, my husband got me carnations on closeout at Kroger.
— Wahh, I was attacked by a 200-pound chimpanzee named Travis and now I don’t have a face, Oprah.