What Makes Me Laugh

Our extended family may not agree on religion, politics, or sports teams, but they can agree on one thing: “You need a new toilet.” Every family member who visits says this to us and we always have the same response: “We know.” It’s funny. I don’t remember noticing the toilet before we bought the house, [...]

Yesterday I got an unexpected call from my massage therapist. “Hey, I’m looking for Doug. He hasn’t shown up for his appointment yet and I can’t reach him on his phone. I’m just wondering if he’s lost.” Lost? In Livingston? This was theoretically possible since it was his first appointment with her, but I thought I had provided [...]

My mom called me a week before we left for Phoenix to remind me not to take our luggage into my grandmother’s house. “If there is anything black on your luggage, or if it’s dirty, or if it could leave a black mark, just leave it in the garage and carry your stuff into the [...]

Unless you’re a Goldman Sachs banker, you’re probably looking for ways to stay within your budget. I normally stay away from financial ideas that seem too good to be true, but I happened on an article on Slate.com (my favorite online read during my lunch hour) by Alicia Barney who test-drove the concept of saving big bucks [...]

At the football game today … Father to young son: “Don’t eat the popcorn off the floor.” Young son picks up popcorn from bleacher floor and eats it. Father to young son: “Don’t eat the popcorn off the floor!” Young son picks up popcorn from bleacher floor and eats it. Father to young son (exasperated): [...]

That’s what my friend Crystal said when she realized that Doug wasn’t aware we were planning a trip to Vegas.  “Yeah,” I said, giving a sheepish look over at Doug. “I haven’t told him yet. But I was going to soon!” See, I have this bad habit of asking for forgiveness rather than permission (not [...]

My mom first introduced me to Sudoku on a plane trip back from Arizona last spring. She opened her book of puzzles and started speaking in slow, precise tones about the numbers one through nine.  “So, you see, if you put a one here, and then there is one over there, another one should go [...]

  I wake up to the sound of glass shattering in the kitchen. It’s 3 a.m. and I know immediately that it has to do with the cats. I try to keep them off the kitchen countertops, and they are banned when I’m cooking, but it’s kind of a futile effort when I’m not looking. The [...]

  On the flight back to America, I collected a few more travel tips to share with my savvy readers. If there is one universal law about life I think it’s that you learn the best lessons the hard way.   Travel Tip #4: Clothes expand in your suitcase It’s a fundamental law of traveling. [...]

I don’t hang out that much on YouTube. Perhaps it goes along with my aversion to “reality” television, which couldn’t get any more fake. But my brother-in-law revealed that YouTube holds at least a few more chuckles than I thought, when he called and directed me to search for phrases like, “little girl and monsters” [...]