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.

What? What? I said WHAT?

I took Jacob to a birthday party at Monkey Joe's yesterday evening. It's one of those indoor play businesses filled with giant inflatables. There were bouncers, slides, some sort of weird inflated rock climbing wall, and a giant monkey-adorned inflatable chair for the birthday girl. I am quite proud to say that I did not pop the chair, in spite of a strong urge to drive my knitting needle into the leering monkey face.

I'm not too proud to admit that I took my knitting because I wanted to impress people. I'm knitting a lace sock at the moment. I saw another woman knitting a bulky garter stitch square in the adult seating area. I shoved Jacob in the general direction of an inflatable (No, son, that giant purple monkey isn't scary at all!) and perched next to the other knitter. "Ha! We had the same idea, I see!" I grinned at her ready to pull my complicated sock out of my bag.

"What?" she replied with a blank smile. I'd been foiled by the roar of dozens of fans that were keeping the inflatables inflated.

"I SAID LOOKS LIKE WE HAD THE SAME IDEA!"

"What?"

"SAME IDEA! WE HAD THE SAME IDEA! SEE? I'M KNITTING TOO! SAAAAAAMME IDEEEEEEEEEA!"

She gave me a polite nod, then turned her chair away from me. I spent the rest of the evening knitting by myself. The parents all gave up on conversation beyond "hello" and "been a long time!" And I didn't even get a piece of cake.

Be Prepared

Nick: When we go to Colorado, we aren't going to be stopping for the bathroom every half hour. We're going to have set stops ahead of time.
Jacob: Well, I guess I better bring a bucket or two.