Me: I’m having trouble with this part [in my book] and I need some advice.
Husband: OK (Starts to read what is on my computer screen behind me)
Me: No! Don’t read what is on the screen. Everything on the screen has already been cut out and is from an old draft where events don’t even happen in the same order. Ignore what is on the screen, it is not in the story anymore and let me tell you about the problem I’m having.
Husband: OK
(I then detail the problem I am having with my story. He does not appear to be giving me his full attention. I finally ask)
Me: So what do you think of that idea? Do you think it sounds good?
Husband: Well, what is on the screen there is terrible, you should cut all of that out.

He was serious, not trying to be funny. At this point I shrieked “I already told you that I cut that out and not to read it!!!” and highlighted all of that text in the color of poop to remind him that it was crap that had already been cut out. He then became incredibly facinated that my version of Word had the ability to highlight things in poop color while his could only do bright yellow and I lost him into the magical distracted place that men’s minds go when poop is even tangentially involved.

As a husband? A wonderful person.

As a writing critique partner, though, he’s freaking useless.

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There are so many quote board entries I cannot put because they are talking about other people. It is downright sad.

The runner up:

Me: It’s interesting to see how many people I knew from school who were really shallow ended up married to rather fat guys. Do you suppose this means they finally learned to accept a person’s inner beauty?
Steve: (in a half asleep stupor) Nah, it means that they married their hot guys and they got fat. *A really long pause ensues here where I have moved on to other thoughts. Suddenly out of the blue Steve says in a dreamy half-asleep voice* . . .  you know. Like Frederline. He got fat.”

But the amazing winner is, of course, my mother:

Me: So is Watchman worth renting?
Mom: Let me put it this way. His penis isn’t big enough to make it worth sitting through the whole movie for.

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My 13 year old cousin is a budding writer and we were talking shop one day when she mused, “I am totally stuck in this one story. I don’t know what should happen next.”

“Kill someone,” I said.

“Really?” she replied.

“Yeah,” I said, “I read a book on writing once that recommended killing someone if you are stuck.”

She looked down at the ground for a moment and then looked up and shyly asked, completely serious, “But. . . won’t I go to jail?”

“In the story! Kill a character in the story!” I clarified and she said, “Oh!” with genuine relief.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this.

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A client contacted me a few days ago and I called, once and then twice before she finally called me back today. In between these calls was totally radio silence.

When I finally get her on the phone, the first thing she said to me is, in a dazed sort of way, “We’ve been playing phone tag for so long.” Now our voicemail has been acting up so I immediately said, “Oh, did you leave me a message?” because I wanted to know if it was still busted. I realize that with her not knowing this probably made me sound like an ass who was all “I called you but never called me, dimwit” but I assure you my intentions were pure.

“Oh, no,” she continues, like she is a little high and floating in a pool of whipped topping, “I never called you.”

So now I’m like, WTH? First I’m confused because I’m still trying to figure out if my voicemail is busted or not. Then I get a little annoyed as I comprehend. Not to be all literal but, if you never called me, how were we playing phone tag?

So, reaching for some form of clarity I said, “So, you never called? I just wanted to make sure because our voicemail is acting up.”

“No, I never called,” she says, like I am some lunatic who is accusing her of calling when she has no idea what a phone even is.

“Oh, OK. Cool,” I say because I am confused and it just seems best to move on. “So, let’s get down to business.” There is a long awkward silence and I’m afraid that she is mad at me or whatever so I start to blabber like a doofus and say, “Sorry, I just thought you meant that you had called me a few times when you said phone tag. I thought you were having trouble reaching me.”

In the same confused, dazed voice she replied, “I was trying to reach you. I mean, I didn’t call but I thought about it.”

Now, at this point, I just said, “Oh.” in a helpful way and barreled on ahead with business.

I should clarify that my rational thought is just that this woman is a space cadet who doesn’t think before she speaks. But what if she was being totally serious?

If someone tries to contact me psychically and fails, does that count as phone tag? Because I am pretty sure that is what just went on.

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Yeah, I know. It’s Thursday. But since tomorrow I am going to visit my grandparents for Father’s Day with my parents, it might as well be Friday because I’m not going to do any work tomorrow.

My brother has a floating schedule where he gets two days off a week, but not necessarily Saturday and Sunday. He refers to every day of the week, however, not by its actual name but rather what it would be if he got Saturday and Sunday off. If he has off on Wednesday and Thursday, he refers to Tuesday as “Friday” and Thursday as “Sunday.”

As you can imagine, this is confusing as heck. Back when he had Thursdays and Friday’s off, he chastised me for forgetting LOST was on by saying, “LOST is always on Sunday nights!” This would be fine were it not for the fact that LOST is on on Wednesday nights so this conversation made no sense.

This past week, he lamented the fact that there was no good TV on on Sunday nights because shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons air on real Sunday. It makes my head hurt.

For most of the year, he also only has one day a week off so he would refer to that day as both Saturday and Sunday, switching words about half-way through the day.

This situation was also the architect of this wonderful conversation.

Sam: Tomorrow is my Friday.
Hillary: Today is Thursday. Tomorrow is everyone’s Friday.
Sam: Well, then we’ll all enjoy it, won’t we?

I suppose it’s the best system we have to work with.

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My Mother: Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow? I’m making Admiral Cho’s chicken.
Me: Sure, but, just for the record, you mean General Tso’s chicken, right?
My Mother: (in a panicked voice) I. . . don’t. . . know. . . what I mean!

“He’s not the brightest tack.” -Mom, yet again mixing her metaphors

I love this woman, people.

And because Mom has been monopolizing the quote board:

Me: (making a wrap, asking for more lettuce) Can I have a little more?
Husband: You don’t want more. That’s potent stuff.
Me: (considering the lettuce) Really?
Husband: Yeah, trust me.
Me: I trust you, I’ve just never heard lettuce described as potent before.
Husband: Oh, it is. *pause* Wait. Did you ask for the lettuce? I thought we were talking about onions all this time.

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“Dad got me this new cereal and I love it! It’s called crusty nuts of cluster!” -My Mom

That totally sounds like a Scottish gang name.

We think she means this:

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Trying to say “They don’t breathe oxygen,” instead I said:
“They don’t smoke English.” -Hillary

Playing Mario Kart:
Steve: He’s a corner cutting rat bastard.
Sam: Did Steve just call me a corn stuffing rat basthead? Is that something I would understand if I read more books?

“I ate so much, rotisserie chicken skin was actually oozing out my pores.” -Sam

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So if you read this blog regularly, you know that my Mom comes out with some of the most ridiculous things. Well, this past weekend, she came out with what might be her finest work yet.

She and my dad had been visiting my grandmother (who is unwell) and I called to see how things were. Mom was in the middle of watching a TV show that had only a few minutes left so she asked if she could call me back in a few minutes and I said, sure, I was just calling to see how Grandma was. So mom says:

“All I’m going to say is, all is not well in Dodge.”

Then she hung up on me while I laughed hysterically. I immediately went downstairs and my husband and I mused on what she meant by this for several funny moments. Then, while at her house for dinner then next day, we discussed, in round table style college seminar discussion, what Mom may have meant.

The Dodge part was easy. My husband says, “Get out of Dodge” all the time so we know where Mom got that one. But the rest of the expression she insisted was a sports metaphor. After much prodding, the metaphor she said that she was trying to use was, “All is not well in Slugville.” (Which, frankly, is an expression I wish would catch on.)

Somehow, amazingly, my husband, suggests that Slugville was supposed to be Mudville and we realize that she is referring to “There was no joy in Mudville, Mighty Casey had struck out” from the poem Casey at the Bat. This, I am sorry to say, resulted in a bit of a fight as my mother and aunt insisted that the final line of the poem was “All was not well in Mudville” instead of “There was no joy in Mudville” but after much yelling and finally looking up on the internet, we finally confrimed that the “no joy” line was correct. Like I had been saying all along. Being right all the time is a burden, you have no idea.

So then Mom insisted we had the wrong expression and that she had really meant something from Shakespeare. So we suggested, “Alls well that ends well” or “Something is rotten in Denmark.” For the rest of the night, Mom kept restating the second phrase as, “Something is rotten in Denville.”

Then, many hours after the conversation, after we had gone home, Mom called us late at night and said only, “There’s Trouble in Rivercity!” triumphantly (referencing The Music Man song that finishes, “with a capital T that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool!” At this point, Mom had totally forgotten what she originally said and thought she had said, “There is trouble in Dodge” which, frankly, would have made more sense than what she actually said.

So, after much debate, we established that “All is not well in Dodge” is a Mom-ism that includes all of the following expressions (not including made up expressions):

• Get the hell out of Dodge
• All’s well that end’s well
• Something is rotten in Denmark
• There was no joy in Mudville
• The Outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day
• There’s Trouble in Rivercity

After this long and robust discussion, I said to the assembled group that we could quite honestly have a college course where each seminar was only devoted to figuring out what Mom meant by things and Mom said with great interest, “I would like to attend that course!”

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I really need to find a better way to do the quote board. But, in the meantime, if I don’t write things up as they happen, I totally forget them so this will have to do in the meantime.

You multitask like a motherfucker. – Steve to me

Steve: Do you mean the pony with worm flowers on her butt?
Me: Worm flowers?
Steve: Whatever. *long pause* I guess they are called butterflies.

*phone rings, I see it is my mother and answer by saying* We have to go BAAAAAACK!
Mom: What the hell are you doing to me over there? I was going to say that to you!

“Sam has done a complete 290!” -Mom (I was going to argue but Sam changes his mind so often, 290 might be more appropriate than 360)

Me: Netflix has Spaceballs for immediate viewing.
Steve: AWESOME!
Me: Don’t we have that on DVD anyway, though?
Steve: Yeah but it should be required viewing for everyone.

“I will rip your fucking googly eyes out & shove them in your sparkly belly button!” -Steve

He was talking to the Beaver on the right in this photo:

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