I hear crying coming from the other room so I hasten to investigate. I find Samantha wearing a wig and trying hard to hold back the tears while Grammy is trying to console her.

                “What’s wrong?” I ask.

                “Oh, we bought this Hannah Montana wig but I’m afraid it’s not exactly what Sam was hoping for,” Grammy tells me.

                “I don’t look anything like Hannah Montana!” Samantha explains between the tears.

                 Grammy and I take turns telling Samantha how we’ve both bought things and couldn’t wait to get them home, only to be disappointed.

                With me it’s shirts. I’ll see a shirt in a store that I think is the coolest thing since sliced bread and  I’m convinced that just putting it on will make me look like George Clooney, but when I get it home and try it on I look more like Rosemary Clooney. I actually bought one shirt that I never even wore; I just ended up giving it to Goodwill (anonymously because I didn’t want the clerks pitying me).

                                                                                * * * * * *

Bonus discussion questions:

#1) What have you been disappointed in when you got it home?

#2) What makes sliced bread so great?

#3) And what was the greatest thing before sliced bread?

                We’re having a debate about who is the boss in the house.  By ‘we’  I mean me and Abby, Nancy and Samantha have already voted for Grammy and if I can only get Abby’s vote it will be a tie.

                I tell her,  “Men are smarter than woman.”

                 I figure she’s only two and she might fall for it, but it doesn’t get past Samantha.

                “What!?! No way, boys are dumb because they only have one thing on their mind,” She tells me.           

                Dang! She’s only six and she’s figured us out already. Then she finishes, “Superhero action figures!”

                Whew!

                Oh, and I’ve asked for a recount. I'm only down 3-1.

                Nancy and I are driving Abby, our two year old granddaughter, home when Nancy asks, “Abby, have you even seen a skunk?”

                “No.”

                So I slow down the car.

                “Well, look out your window. Right there on the side of the road is a skunk. Do you see it?”

                “Yup.”

                “It’s dead,” Nancy tells Abby, “that’s why it’s just lying there.”

                “It’s not dead,” responds Abby.

                “Oh yes, I’m afraid it’s dead.”

                “But it can’t be dead,” Abby argues, “I can still see it!”

                Huh?

I hate to pick on the Post Office because I know I have readers who either work for the Post office or have relatives who do, but this is another one that I just can’t let go by without commenting.

I sent a letter to a company in Florida – their address was a P.O. Box. Today, May 11^th the letter was returned to me with the message “BOX CLOSED.”   When did I send the letter? The mark on the envelope says January 30^th. That’s right, it took the Post Office three and a half months, or just over 100 days to determine that they couldn’t deliver a letter to a closed P.O. Box and return it to me.

Oh, and if you don’t already know, today the price of a stamp is going from 42 cents to 44 cents.

          When you’re six years old one of your dreams is riding a bike without the training wheels. Unfortunately, this wasn’t coming easy to Samantha. She would do fine as long as an adult was holding on to her back, but the second you let go she would ‘drop the anchor,’ dragging her feet and screeching to a stop. “Don’t let go! Don’t let go!” Night after night her father would work with her, trying to get her to go on her own, but always with the same result.

            Then Grammy Nancy gave it a try – with a twist. Every time Nancy would let go she’d start to clap. You can probably see where this is going, after 5 or 6 times and a lot of clapping Grammy let go and didn’t clap – and Samantha was off on her own without knowing it. We have a circular driveway so she can practice without going anywhere near a street and Samantha got to the other end of the circular driveway and was coming around the curve when she looked up and saw Grammy Nancy standing at the other end of the yard smiling and waving.

            Samantha once again ‘dropped the anchor,’ but this time she was jumping up and down and shouting “I did it! I did it!” She spent the rest of the afternoon riding around the circle by herself. I set up a lounge chair on the grass and read while Samantha circled around me. “It’s just like flying!” she’d call out to me.

            That night as we were driving her home Nancy and I could hear Samantha in the back seat talking to herself. “I’m only six years old and I can ride a bike all by myself!”

            Of course, Grammy Nancy was so proud of her that the next day the two of them went out and bought Samantha a new bike. Oh, and Grammy Nancy bought herself a new one as well and now the two of them can be seen riding down the local bike paths, big smiles on both of their faces.

            As for Grampy, I’m still riding my old bike, but we now have so many bikes in the basement I’m looking into buying a shed for the back yard just to store them.

 I go down to the local Postal Center and I tell them that I have a bunch of T-shirts I want to send out and what would they suggest for packaging and they show me a large envelope. I say, “Great, I’ll try one and see how it works out. How much?” This is important: The envelopes are $.49 each.

            The envelope works fine so I go back and ask if I can buy the envelopes in bulk. “Sure,” the same woman behind the counter tells me. “They come in a case of 100 envelopes for $98.00.”

            I immediately put my three semesters of college calculus to good use and, by counting on my fingers and toes, determine that this is NOT a great deal.

            “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I try and reason with the woman. “That’s ninety-eight cents per envelope when you told me I can buy them separately for forty-nine cents each. That’s double the cost!”

            The woman gives me a bored look and shrugs. “That’s the way it is,” she tells me.

            *sigh*

            I didn’t but any envelopes that day, but one of these days I’m going to get up the courage to go back and tell her I want to buy 100 envelopes, one at a time.

Note. So why do kids always have to go to the bathroom just when the food is served? 

Note: I never reprint someone else’s work, but these were too good not to pass on…Please vote for your favorite!....

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THESE ARE ENTRIES TO A WASHINGTON POST COMPETITION ASKING FOR A TWO-LINE RHYME WITH THE MOST ROMANTIC FIRST LINE, AND THE LEAST ROMANTIC SECOND LINE:

1. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you has screwed up my life.

2. I see your face when I am dreaming.
That's why I always wake up screaming.

3. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not.

4. I thought that I could love no other
-- that is until I met your brother.

5. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's
empty and so is your head.

6. I want to feel your sweet embrace;
But don't take that paper bag off your face.

7. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

8. My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

9. My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe 'Go to hell.'

10. What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime. ....

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