Five Slaps

I was chatting on the phone with my mother yesterday evening while cooking dinner and dealing with an over-tired toddler. I half heard her start a story about a patient. Then I heard, "Five slaps a week!" followed by raucous laughter. Of course I had her start the story over. This patient has a job working with particularly thick people. Mom asked him how he was dealing with the stress. He replied, "Well, it would be a lot easier if I could just get permission for five slaps a week."

Having dealt with the same boneheaded error at work twice in one week, I was pretty attracted to the idea. Of course, I don't really advocate slapping people. And five slaps a week is a bit excessive - I think I could make do very nicely with five figurative slaps per month. I've been trying it out this morning. It's similar to Elaine Benes deciding if a man was sponge-worthy. Someone irritated me, so I wondered if the irritation was worth spending one of my slaps. It wasn't, but the decision process made me laugh out loud.

Special note to Derrick: I don't know if you'll be back, but your comment made me laugh hard. Thanks! And no, that wasn't me with the mouthful of cookies.