Kids say the darndest things…..

I was torn between the title I used and "Out of the mouths of babes" …. I had a hard time deciding.

This is a story about my daughter cracking me up. She is at this point not exactly a kid, but she is most certainly a babe…..and she's my kid and will always be.....so both titles work for me.

I love my kid and she makes me laugh. She's also in a situation right now that's very reminiscent of a lot of my work life, a lone female mixed into a pack of men.

My daughter is an engineering student and there aren't a lot of females in her immediate circle. She told me that the guys finally stopped apologizing just this year for the crudeness of their remarks or if they swore in front of her. She doesn't swear, and she looks like an angel, so it's always funny to me and to those around her at school when something pops out of her mouth that you might not be expecting.

Case in point…….

I was talking to her on the phone while she trudged through the snow to her class the other day. She was describing the snow in the city as not very deep but treacherous to walk in. She asked if it was snowing where I was. I looked out of my window and said that it wasn't actively snowing but that I had virgin snow as far as the eye could see.

She replied:

"We have some virgin snow on the grass, but the snow that's in the street is pretty slutty."

 

[see the title]

Wanted: Witty banter

I love witty banter. I love it person, I love it in email, I love it on tv and of course I love it in movies.

I was watching The Thin Man the other day. Nick Charles is in bed after being shot by a bad guy. His wife Nora brings him a bunch of newspapers and drops them on the bed. Nick picks one up, reads the headline and flourishes it at Nora.

Nick: I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune.

Nora: I read where you were shot five times in the tabloids.

Nick: It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids.

He’s a really fungi

My friend Bill is a lot of fun to talk to. He has timing and delivery like a younger version of Letterman and his story telling skills are awe inspiring. We talk about a myriad of subjects and often travel tangents that take us in circular conversations that make us both laugh our butts off.

He told me probably the best story I ever heard one day last winter and I was still laughing four hours later picturing it.

So the really funny thing is he told me a story via email earlier this week. Since it was just text there was no timing, no delivery, no arm waving, it was just plain text and it was the shortest email he ever sent me but it concerned probably the most bizarre thing that I've ever heard.

One of the things that Bill does for the park system is catalog specimens of fungus.

It's an ethereal process and the timing is crucial because a fungus doesn't have much of a shelf life.

So the most recent sighting of a rare slime mold happened in the wee hours of the morning and Bill went to off to catalog it after emailing me saying he was excited about it and he'd tell me all about it later. To give me some background on the mold he told me to picture a big bowl of tapioca pudding, but one that could move.

Yes, this particular mold can travel.

I thought that was the best part of the story until I read the next part.

You know the movie The Blob?

Well, the movie was based on a HUGE sighting of this weird slime mold stuff. The residents in Texas where it was discovered called in the authorities because they thought that it must be something from outer space.

The scary thing?

Bill hasn't emailed me since……..

True Story

A friend of mine told me about running into a man she knew while grocery shopping. She glanced up from the cereal box she was inspecting and saw him reading a bread label a few feet from where she was standing.

She walked up to him and tugged his sleeve.

When he turned politely to engage her she hugged him warmly, asked about his family and stood and chatted with him for thirty minutes.

It wasn't until she was leaving the store that she realized that her only prior contact with the man was morning after morning as he nodded to her when she climbed aboard his bus.