compiled by Slotcar Hatebath
My wife thinks I'm a penny-pincher. When a commercial for insurance was on TV, I asked her, "What would you do with the money if something happened to me?"
"It depends on if you died or were only paralyzed," came her immediate reply.
—Peter Mayhew, Filbert, S.C.
In a course on guidance and counseling that my company made me take, a consultant gave an example of how to negotiate. When it was time to buy a new car, he told us, he wanted a BMW, but his wife thought a Volvo would be fine. He went on to explain that after a rational give-and-take discussion, they reached a compromise.
"So," I jokingly asked him, "what color is your Volvo?"
"It's a BMW, that's what friggin' color it is," he replied.
—Jeffrey Hyams, Closter, N.J.
It was Saturday afternoon when my husband asked if I'd like to see a video that night. "Sure," I replied. So at about 8:30 p.m., after the baby had gone to bed, I sat down on the couch as usual and he inserted a tape into the VCR. "What movie did you get?" I asked.
"I thought we'd watch My Best Friend's Wedding," he responded with a twinkle in his eye. He then lit some candles, handed me a glass of champagne, and hit the play button. But instead of seeing Julia Roberts come up on the screen, I was suddenly watching some familiar faces. . . and the beginning of Pam and Tommy Lee: Hardcore and Uncensored.
—Cindy Eck, Charter Oak, Calif.
I was taking my fiftieth birthday pretty well until I went to visit my two aunts who live in different nursing homes. When I visited Aunt Alys, she blurted out, "Virginia, you are getting very gray!"
"Well, yes," I admitted. "But I still feel young."
I put the thought aside until I drove over to see my other aunt. "You look so young and healthy," my Aunt Bernie gushed. "How do you do it? You have such a youthful glow!"
I thanked her for her compliment but couldn't resist telling her about Aunt Alys's comment on my gray hair.
"For the love of God," Aunt Bernie whispered. "Please get me out of this nursing home."
—Virginia Moyle, Calais, Maine
As the parents of five young children, my husband and I often find our house looking like a war zone. I am therefore very impressed when friends who have children maintain a tidy home. We recently visited friends whose four kids seemed like they made it a habit to put their toys away when they weren't playing with them. As we were leaving I said to our friends, "To look at your house, you'd never even know kids live here. They're so neat, it looks like they only play with one toy at a time."
"Your kids have more than one toy?" the couple responded in unison.
—Martine Gage, Frankfort, Ky.
A woman from Bolivia I know married an American man. She was excited about her new life in the United States and spent a lot of time watching TV.
Wanting to experience as much of our popular culture as she possibly could, she told her husband there was a movie she just had to see because everyone on television was talking about it. He asked her what it was called.
"Two Thumbs Up," she replied.
"We already saw that," he said. "Antonio Banderas was in it."
—Janey Frostin, Eaton Rapids, Mich.
One of my duties at the bookstore where I work is to handle customer returns. As I helped a young woman who had two small children with her, I noticed she was returning a children's book on dinosaurs. It's the bookstore's policy to ask the reason for any return, so I asked her why she didn't want it.
"Because it's all lies," she said.
—Drew Rouse, Marengo, Ind.
Our phone number is just one digit off from the electric company's trouble-shooting number, so we often receive calls when there's a power failure. I always try to be polite, even when the calls come at inconvenient moments.
One night at about 3 a.m. the phone rang, and a man notified me that his power had gone out. He excitedly told me his son was undergoing kidney dialysis, and the machine's backup system wasn't working, either.
"I'm sorry," I said groggily, "I can't help you."
"You don't understand. Is this the electric company?" the man asked desperately.
"Really sir, I'm very sorry, but I can't help you," I said as I returned the phone to its cradle.
—Neil Spence, Kutch, Colo.
My husband and I spent several hours at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia with a "person of the past"—Thomas Jefferson. We visited the palace gardens with him, listened to his oratory, and sat in the shade as he talked about his home near Charlottesville.
We became so absorbed in his character that it was quite a shock to see him leave Williamsburg and drive away in a car with Pennsylvania plates. That quickly brought us back to reality—not so our fellow visitor, who announced loudly, "Oh my God! Thomas Jefferson has one of those pink triangles on the back of his car!"
—Yolanda Nash, Forks of Capacon, W.Va.
When we were on our first date, Ralph, my husband-to-be, and I got to talking about cooking. We're both Italian-American, and good food is an important part of our lives.
But it surprised me when he asked, "How do you make your sauce?"
I was embarrassed to say I use store-bought, so instead I made twisting gestures with my hands, indicating how I open a jar.
Ralph's face froze. I started to think my honesty had ruined my chances with him. Then, in awe, he asked, "On our first date?"
—Mariangela Rossi, Haddam Neck, Conn.
Dad is from the old school, where you keep your money under the mattress—only he kept his life savings in his underwear drawer. One day I bought Dad an unusual personal safe—a can of spray paint with a false bottom—so he could keep his money in his workshop. Later I asked Mom if he was using it. "Oh yes," she replied. "he put his money in it the day you gave it to him."
"No burglars would think to look on the work shelf!" I gloated.
"It wouldn't matter if they did," Mom replied. "I was cleaning up in there the other day and I threw that can away because it felt empty when I shook it."
—Jim Nolan, Bellefontaine, Ohio
My husband has always been disdainful of people who talk too much. Recently, he proudly told me he'd heard that men only use twenty-two hundred words a day, while women use forty-four hundred. I pondered that a moment, then concluded, "That's because everything women say to their husbands, they have to repeat."
He looked up and said, "You don't understand anything."
—Tabitha Dinch, Gas, Kans.
Soon after my fiancé and I began dating, we were driving to the movies when he slammed on the brakes to avoid something in the road. He immediately put his hand out in front of me as if to protect me from hitting the windshield. As I was thinking how sweet this was, he looked over and said, "There wasn't really anything in the road. I was just testing you."
—Amber Ates, Arkadelphia, Ark.
Every week, my friend and I attend country-and-western dance night at our local bar. Recently, the establishment put up a life-sized cardboard cut-out of John Wayne near the dance floor. A sign said patrons who danced with the Duke would get a free drink.
We watched as an attractive young woman grabbed the cut-out and whirled it around the dance floor. I told my friend he should cut in and dance with the woman, so he approached her and tapped her on the shoulder. "No thanks," she responded. "I'm an alcoholic."
—Frank Hilton, Red Boiling Springs, Tenn.
I bought a pair of in-line skates and a friend recommended I break them in by wearing them around the house. I practiced gliding over our carpet, leaving a number of indentations. Then I put the skates in the closet, under some old clothes.
When my husband came home, he saw the marks on the rug and exclaimed, "You had that guy over again, didn't you? The one you met at the gym!"
—Shelly Baclanova, Mt. Olympus, Utah
During birth preparation class we were learning relaxation techniques, and the instructor asked us to come up with ideas to lower stress levels. Silence pervaded the room, until one dad-to-be, a slight fellow with aviator glasses and a religious T-shirt, finally offered: "Prayer?"
"Good," the instructor said. "Anything else?"
"How about sex?" I chimed in.
A few chuckles followed, and I heard the devout fellow with the glasses mutter something under his breath. Later, in the parking lot, he came up to me and said, "If you don't accept Jesus Christ into your life, your baby won't go to heaven if it dies. But that's better than getting an abortion, I guess."
—Victor Earles, Lake Jem, Fla.
While studying for a degree in marriage and couples therapy, my husband, Pete, emphasized that the people he counseled were called "clients," not "patients." When he graduated and began working, he realized that clients were hard to find. His distress peaked one evening as he was trying to pay a stack of bills from our dwindling bank account.
"Patience, patience," I offered with a laugh in my voice, as he tried to balance the checkbook.
"Patients, clients, whatever," he barked. "If we don't get some screwed-up people in here soon, the bank is gonna repossess the Saab!"
—Michelle Randian, Bala-Cynwyd, Pa.
Donna was celebrating her 40th birthday, and her other friends and I planned a surprise party at a nearby nightclub. We picked up Donna and told her we were taking her to a male strip show. When we arrived at the restaurant, we made sure she was the first to walk in. About two seconds later she ran out.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"That was my son Michael on stage," she answered breathlessly. "He told me he worked at the Paintball place!"
—Deb Ford, Sandwich, Ill.
My friend, who is the CFO of a large corporation, was very supportive of her husband's campaign to be elected vice-president of his local union, but she left for work before he did and missed seeing him off the day of the big election.
She would also be late arriving home, so she left a special message for him on their telephone answering machine: "Good luck, honey, but don't worry. Unions don't matter in this country anyway."
—Misty Fusco, Greig, N.Y.
My wife went out and bought a heavy-duty blender the other day. Since in the 12 years I've known her I've never seen her buy a kitchen appliance, I was naturally surprised. But she told me that she was worried about crushing all the ice we'd need for frozen drinks at our upcoming cocktail party. "We're having a cocktail party?" I asked her, not sure if I had forgotten the date. "What cocktail party is that?"
Then came her reply: "The one we're having while you're out of town."
—Will Gorman, Robe, Wash.
I answered the phone on my birthday and was surprised to hear my father throatily singing "Happy Birthday" to me. When he finished, he asked, "Well, what do you think?"
"How did you get my number?" I replied.
—Brianna Schlitze, Common Fence Point, R.I.
