The Required Halloween Post

I have a quick gripe. I'll just do it and then I can move on. There is a very big difference between a costume party and a character party. Nobody throws Halloween character parties and there's good reason for that. So if your costume involves your voice or the way you walk or certain choreographed dance moves, it's not a costume. It's an impersonation. And it's probably not a good one.

What not to do:
My older brother decided one year to dress as an old man with a walker. And instead of just looking like a senile old man, he acted like one. So he yelled at people about bowel movements and talked about the old days... for 4 hours. He didn't once break character. Which was funny for about 14 seconds... out of the 4 hours.

What to do:
One of my younger sisters dressed up like Where's Waldo. Just a simple striped outfit and matching hat with some thick glasses. Then she stood in the background of every picture she could get into. Hilarious. Not over the top. No voices, actions, etc. Just looking like what she was supposed to look and adding a little humor for pictures. Great costume.

So if you're coming to any of my future Halloween parties, don't act like something, just dress like something.

Nobody Calls Me Chicken

Sometimes when I walk down a long hallway or a long stretch of sidewalk, I try to walk with my eyes closed for a long time. It's like playing chicken with myself. I usually try to see how far or how long I can walk without freaking out about tripping or running into something (I don't recommend doing this on a crosswalk).

It's not so dangerous on a sidewalk. The worse thing that can happen is the occasional person seeing me from afar off and wondering why my eyes are closed. But it's quite dangerous in a long hallway. Because there's a chance that someone will come around a corner (who breathes quietly and doesn't wear squeaky shoes) and I'll walk right at them. And that almost happened yesterday. I was playing personal chicken in the hallway, and I opened my eyes about 5 feet from where I was going to open a door. But to my surprise there was a man standing directly in front of me, looking at me like I was insane. So, standing in the middle of the hallway like an idiot, I jumped about three feet in the air and inhaled sharply (snorted).

So the guy probably thought I fell asleep while walking and he jolted me awake. And I prefer someone thinking that over someone knowing that I play chicken with myself in a hallway.

Top Ten Things That Hit My Nostalgia Nerve When I Hear People Say Them

10. "Go fish!"

9. "Y2K"

8. "One point twenty-one jigga-watts!"

7. "As you wish."

6. "Heads up, seven up!"

5. "You sunk my battleship!"

4. "Pogs"

3. "Updog"

2. "Our Princess is in another castle."

1. "Kimmy Gibler"

Delicious... I Meant Delicious

Why is it that my older brother can say whatever he wants and nobody bats an eye? He calls people "dawg" and uses the word "true" as an affirmative response. ("Sir, would you like another Diet Coke?" - "True!") And nobody ever makes fun of him for it. But I branch out for one little phrase and everybody laughs at the nerdy fat white kid. Apparently, I'm not cool enough to pull off the phrase "this mango juice is da bomb."

Everybody at the table laughed at me and then shook their heads in unison. The only verbal response I got was, "No. You just can't.... Never again." I think it was a combination of the fact that I don't ever say that kind of stuff, I was the nerdiest person at the table, and I was commenting on mango juice. If only I was with a bunch of other nerds and we were having barbeque or something. Then maybe I could use that phrase.

The thing that I realized, though, is that I got off easy. I've held back on my more ridiculous phrases for a long time. So now I know I can't say, "You got served!" And I can definitely cross "off the chain," "tru dat," and "play on, playa" off of my list of things to say out loud.

This Is My 100th Post - And It's Not Very Good

I burned my tongue this morning. And now my mouth tastes like I licked an envelope. It's a little numb and really unpleasant. I'm sure that there's a direct correlation between coffee temperature and desire for coffee. Because the more badly I need caffeine on a Monday morning, the hotter the coffee is when I take my first sip. Kinda dragging and just want something to drink in the morning? Cold coffee. Bloodshot eyes and mumbled speech after 3 hours of restless sleep? Lava coffee.

This is yet another instance where I can never get something just right. I'm like the first two parts of Goldie Locks. Too hot, too cold. Too hard, too soft. Too much, too little. I go through an entire box of cereal and most of the milk, just trying to find the perfect ratio of the two for my bowl. I have four pounds of deodorant on one arm and a thin, worthless layer on the other. So depending on which side of me you're sitting on, you might think I work at the department store cologne counter or an underground sweatshop.

If I could just average out my mistakes with my successes, I could consider myself a success. It's like being bipolar with everything but my emotions. That's why some people who meet me think I'm an idiot, but others think I'm a certifiable genius (okay, that's just my son, but still). I remember in junior high school that I made a stupid mistake on a group assignment in science class and the girl I was working with thought I was a complete moron. And then I got nervous every time I talked to her or worked with her, so I just made it worse. I always dropped stuff and used the wrong words for stuff. And at the end of the year, I had the highest grade on the last test and she was shocked. I'm sure she thought I was the Rain Man or something like that.

Dapper Dan

When people say you look like a celebrity, don't get excited. Because you can look very similar to a good-looking celebrity and still be really ugly (like an evil twin). Or, as my older brother pointed out to me, you can look like a not-so-good-looking celebrity. I would prefer to be told that I look similar to George Clooney or Leonardo DiCaprio. (Is it a bad sign that I can spell his name correctly on the first try?) I could handle the fact that it was just a comparison and I was essentially the generic knockoff substitute.

But my brother likes to tell me I look like a younger Dan Aykroyd. And I don't mean to rag on Mr. Aykroyd. I'm sure he's a nice man. I mean, he was a Ghostbuster after all. But looking like him isn't exactly a compliment. And it stings even worse because I saw a picture of him on my SNL Trivial Pursuit game (which I am really good at) and at a glance I thought I saw a picture of myself. So it kinda hits a nerve.

My brother also told me that I look like Tom Cruise. But he said I looked like Tom Cruise in that move The Firm when he's been awake for 48 hours and he's running for his life for twenty minutes. He even freeze-framed it for me for reference. Why can't I just be George Clooney's evil twin?

What's My Age Again?

I can't figure out how old I am. I mean, I know my actual age, but some of the things I do just don't match that number. I'm in my mid(to-late)-twenties, but there's a lot of stuff in my life that doesn't fit that age.
I drink coffee in the morning (like a 30-year old man), I'm losing my hair (like a 40-year old man), and I clip coupons almost daily (like a 60-year old woman). But I also play video games, stay up really late, and think flatulence is hilarious. And that stuff makes it seem like I'm about to hit puberty.
If you're only as old as you feel, then I definitely don't know how old I am. It depends on what I'm doing when you ask. I'll just have to combine all of the extremes so they average out. I'll stay up really late to clip coupons, drink coffee while I play video games in the morning, and make flatulent noises while I apply my Rogaine.

One And Done

I have a few people I know who I'm not really that close to, but I know a few key things about them. But I'm always afraid to mention the limited knowledge I have for fear that I'll be that guy that only ever talks about one thing. I'm really afraid of doing that because people always do that to me. Like if they know I write a blog, but that's all they know about me, then their first question after saying hello is, "So how's the blog going?" And then that's all they ever ask me. And I have to try to make blog-writing interesting in normal conversation.

There's this older guy I work with who only knows one thing about me. So every time I run into him, he tries to squeeze it into conversation. He knows my dad because they used to work together. And all he ever says to me is something related to my father. He drew my name in a raffle a couple of weeks ago for a brand new iPod (yes I won an iPod, so be jealous), and as I walked up to get it he said, "So you gonna let your dad borrow this?" As if that had anything to do with anything. At that point I'd just prefer he pretend he didn't know me at all.

Then last week he was part of a group of people passing out some company logo stress balls when I walked into the building. And as he handed me a stress ball he said, "Not to be used as a projectile towards family members... like your dad." I didn't even know how to respond. He kinda caught me off-guard on that one. So I was forced to mumble something about stress and keep moving.

I really would prefer that he didn't talk to me. He's just trying too hard. And it's an insult for him to think I won't catch on. So what I think I'll do is find one tidbit about him and mention it every time I see him. Then I can beat him to the punch. And the weirder the information I can get, the better. I wonder if he's had a vasectomy.

100 Degrees For One Degree

I think I was always destined to be an English major. Because I've always been monumentally annoyed when people mispronounce or misspell things. I lived in a foreign country (Louisiana) for a few years in elementary school and almost had a nervous breakdown at age 7 because people referred to a desk as a "dex" and the spelling bee was only six minutes long. So it's always been important for me to correct people's grammar and spelling.

So let's fast forward about 14 years to college. After three years of "studying," I only had 60 credit hours to my name. Or in other words, I'd completed roughly two years worth of college in just three years. And that's right on pace for a six-year degree. The problem at the time was that my university requires students to declare a major once they've hit 60 credit hours. And after three years of college, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. (Ambition is obviously not one of my strengths.) So since Texas A&M University doesn't give out degrees in General Studies, I had to pick a major that would accept my solid 2.01 grade point average.

I decided my best bet was somewhere in the College of Liberal Arts, so I headed down to their office in August a few weeks before school started. I looked at the requirements and possible jobs available for each major. And since I only had a few strengths in a couple of areas, I narrowed it down to Political Science (what I still call Social Studies) and English. And I couldn't really decide which one I wanted to do. So I read further down and realized that to declare Political Science I'd have to walk about half a mile across campus in the Texas August heat to their main building. But to declare English, I just had to walk down a flight of stairs to their air-conditioned office on the second floor.

You already know I picked English, but now you know why. Me + walking in the Texas summer sun = profuse sweating and possible collapse. But I'd rather be a lazy English major than a sweaty Political Science major any day.

We Have Our Blogfan Challenge Winner!

Congratulations to Kelly H. from North Carolina!

She figured out the clues and won a year's subscription of Better Homes and Gardens magazine!

For those of you who are curious, the clues led to another blog at fatclowns.blogspot.com.
When highlighted and deciphered, the answer to the last clue was of "traffic lights."

So congratulations again to Kelly! And for those of you who were only visiting the blogs for a chance at the prize, I'm sorry that you'll have to settle for just regular blog posts now.

The Great Sandwich Caper

My younger sister is afraid of strangers. She's in her 20s, but she acts like someone's gonna try to lure her away with candy or throw her into a van at any moment. And I'm confident that I know why she's like this. It's because she has a really good memory. She never forgets anything that anybody tells her (regardless of how true it is). And she's been banned from watching the local news because she keeps a list of horrific crimes that have been covered. So she can recite exactly what happened to the last newsworthy victim who "thought they were safe too."

I don't really scare very easily. I figure my chances of getting mugged are smaller than most because a) I'm 6'3" and 275 pounds, b) I don't drive a nice car or carry valuables, and c) I'm not good-looking enough to worry about someone's lust taking over when they see me. So I guess it might be unfair to judge my sister when she gets worried. But I think there should be a little more common sense sometimes.

A few years ago, when I was in college, my roommates and I invited a big group of people over to our house to watch a football game. And we had a really big, really inexpensive house. It was inexpensive because it was in the worst neighborhood in the whole city. Well, because so many people were coming and going, we left the front and back doors unlocked (which was not common practice for the ghetto we lived in). So about halfway through the game a rather old (and rather tipsy) woman walked right in through the back door. She started asking people for any money they could spare so she and her roommate could go to the grocery store for some food. Most people thought it was weird or funny, but just avoided her. But since I was the guy who invited everyone over, I figured I should talk to her. So (before realizing she was a little out of it) I asked her what she needed. I didn't have any cash, so I made her two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and gave her a bag of chips (in about 12.5 seconds). And on the way out she asked if we were a church. So I figured she just got a little mixed up because of all the cars outside and assumed that we were a local community church. No big deal, really. Just kind of weird and kind of funny and a little sad.

But my little sister had a very different reaction. At first seeing the woman (and let me remind you, she was old), my sister freaked out and ran into the other room. I don't know if she expected the lady to pull a gun on one of us from her muumuu or maybe pull off a realistic old-lady mask and explain her plot to take over the world. But in any case, my sister was terrified. She hid behind the next biggest guy in the house and looked like she was about to cry. And if she could have made it to the door, I'm sure she would have jumped in her car and driven home at top speed. Then after the lady left, my sister kept shaking and asking if we should call the police. Talk about an overreaction.

And I think I can really blame this total distrust of strangers on my mother. She wouldn't just give us the standard "stay close to me so you don't get lost" when we were in the store. We were more likely to hear, "If you don't stay with me, then the gypsies will steal you!" And that will scar a child emotionally.

I Figured It Out

Here's the difference between an optimist and a pessimist:

The scenario is that someone laughs at how big your shirt is (like someone did to me last week) and says, "Wow, that shirt is huge! That's not yours, is it?"

If you're a pessimist, you'll think they're saying it's because they didn't realize how fat you are (and then you'll cry).

If you're an optimist, you'll think they're saying it's because you look smaller than you think you do (because you're in denial).

And if you’re a realist you'll know that they're saying it because you wear a XXXL that looks like a parachute with sleeves.

Accordion To Jim

One of my older brothers (let's call him "Jim" so the title works) gets a lot of joy out of messing with people. He's not as fond of pranks as some of my other brothers are, so he just enjoys the smaller things.

When our grandmother was sick, people would ask how she was doing. And he'd make a serious face and say, "Well, she's in a better place now. She moved to Florida." But he'd always be sure to take a sip of his drink or cough for a moment between the two sentences. That way people thought for a couple of seconds that she'd died. Pretty mean, but pretty clever.

He also likes to plant little seeds of doubt in people's minds. He'll throw something into a conversation and never let anyone know he was joking. For example, I once heard him say, "Well, I was talking to my parole officer... um, I mean... a friend of mine who's a parole officer and he agreed with me." And then he didn't acknowledge that he'd said anything strange. So then the person he was talking to tried to figure out in their head whether or not he was kidding. ("He doesn't seem like a drug dealer, but maybe he was busted for possession. I could definitely seem him being a recovering addict ex-con.")

The funniest one that he pulled was convincing his girlfriend that he was a skilled accordion player. He actually talked to everyone in the family ahead of time and made sure that they didn't call him out on it. And then he came up with an elaborate story about how our parents had made him play when he was a kid. Even though I knew the truth, it was hard not to believe him. He's really convincing. But his girlfriend got pretty mad when she found out we were all in on it. She's kinda sensitive about being gullible. (She got excited when I told her that she should get the new "Accordion Hero" video game for him.) Plus, I think she might be a closet polka fan, and it hurt her feelings that we were treating it so lightly.

I Had To Look Up The Proper Spelling For 'Wedgie'

The best insults are the ones that hit a nerve or touch on a subject that someone is really insecure about. That's why you won't hurt my feelings if you make fun of the small amount of gray hair on my head. Because I'm not self-conscious about that. I'm okay with going gray way too early. But if you mock my not-crooked-enough-to-get-braces-but-crooked-enough-to-refrain-from-smiling-too-often teeth, then I'll probably cry and run away. But, my wife has found a new, nerve-hitting insult to throw out whenever I say something stupid. And all she has to say is, "Why don't you blog about it?"

See, I feel really dorky about certain aspects of my life. I don't broadcast some things about me because the average person jumps to certain conclusions (like "nerd" or "loser" or "needs a wedgie") when I talk about video games or Scrabble skills or writing a blog. And I know I'm supposed to embrace my individuality and all that, but just saying the word "blog" makes my voice go really high and gives me the urge to push glasses up my nose (even though I don't wear glasses).

So when my wife wants to send a zinger my way, she can avoid being mean but still give me an emotional wedgie (and if I ever start a band, our name will definitely be Emotional Wedgie). My wife will never make fun of my graying hair or my semi-crooked teeth. She's not mean like that. She knows that I don't have any control over that stuff and it would be cruel to make me feel more insecure. But when we get in a good-natured insult contest (or Yo Mamma competition) she knows exactly what to say. And I've yet to come up with an answer for it.

But now I've brought it full circle (like an emotional swirlie, maybe?). I start a blog, she mocks me for starting a blog, I blog about her mocking me for having a blog. And next, I think she'll mock me for blogging about her mocking of my blog. In the meantime, I have a headache from typing that last sentence.

Sometimes I Don't Have A Funny Story

I almost ran over a squirrel last week. And I wasn't trying to run over a defenseless animal (because those dark days are finally behind me). But he didn't do anything to get out of the way. He was lying on his stomach in the middle of the road and I thought he'd already been run over. He didn't budge for the quarter mile it took me to get to him. And I avoided him by a few inches. Then I looked in my mirror and he was gone. Not gone like I was at the wrong angle to see him. I mean gone like the section of the road where he was laying was suddenly empty.

And it freaked me out more than it should have. Because I couldn't figure out why he would do that. I thought maybe he was injured and couldn't move very well, but he had to have darted off the road pretty quick for me not to see him. And since logic doesn't sound like much fun today, I'm thinking the explanation is one of three things.

Option one is that he was suicidal. He had recently lost his girlfriend or found out about a tragically ironic nut allergy. So he decided that life wasn't worth the living. And then when the one chance he had drove right past him, he chose a busier street and jetted off to make it happen. But that sounds pretty far-fetched.

Option two is that he was playing Extreme Rodent Truth-Or-Dare and his dare was to play chicken with a minivan Corvette. And if this is the case, I'm impressed. Because that's gutsy. And frankly, the awesomest thing I've ever imagined.

Option three is that he was waiting for a vehicle to stow away on. And then as I passed, he grabbed onto my running board with his tiny ninja squirrel paws and tucked himself away under my car. Which means I have a freakishly strong, totally fearless, extremely patient squirrel in my garage. Or maybe in my house. Which is both awesome and terrifying.

The Camera Subtracts Ten Pounds

So I think I've figured out why it's hard to lose weight. Because I always thought it was a combination of my love of food, hatred of exercise, and general laziness. But it turns out, it's something else (coupled with my obvious denial). It's the discouragement I feel when I look at pictures of my former self.

The advent of better technology (like the digital camera) has made it possible for me to delete photos that emphasize my size. So if I take a bad picture, I can delete it and leave the better ones. The problem is that people always look at the pictures later and say, "You were a lot thinner in this picture." And they never realize what that means. It never occurs to them that their implying I've gotten fatter, and that they're basically telling me that I am a walking "Before" shot while all my old pictures are the "After" shots. And I even get this comment the week after the picture is taken. I miss the days when a lazy friend would take a picture, and I knew they wouldn't get it developed for at least 3 years. Now my picture can be on facebook in three minutes. I can't stop that kind of speed. My only other option is to stop destroying the evidence and leave the pictures on the camera. So I can't win. Either people always know how fat I am because they have photographical proof, or they think I've gained weight constantly.

Of course, the real reason it's hard for me to lose weight is because I love food. All kinds of food. And I'm lazy, so I don't like exercising. I mean, it would be fun if I could exorcise... but not exercise (wordplay!).

I guess I'll just have to find a way to look thinner all the time. Because I can clear camera memory, but I can't clear human memories (wordplay again!). On a purely unrelated note, does anyone know if there's a man's version of a girdle? (Maybe something called a "boydle"?)

A Facebook Only A Mother Could Love

My mom was trying to remind everyone that it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but she forgot the word "Cancer". So her status on facebook said, "Just a reminder that it's Breast Awareness Month. Do what you can to help this cause." And that's hilarious. Because the point of raising awareness is to make people more aware of a particular issue or occurrence. So my mom is essentially advocating that people be more aware of... well, you know. Like there are people out there who were unaware of their existence ("Hey! What are those?!"). Or maybe she just wants people to be more aware of them ("There's some! And there's some! And there's some!"). Either way it's really funny when you take it literally.

But I want to raise awareness for a different cause. I'm calling it the Advocacy Group to Keep Parents Off Facebook, or AGKPOF for short (it really rolls off the tongue, don't you think?). And I know what you're thinking. Yes, I am a parent. So the title of the group seems to imply that I'm advocating against my own use of facebook. But the group's true aim is to keep computer illiterate parents off of facebook. I just thought AGKPOF sounded better than AGKCIPOF.

My advocacy group proposes a simple test for new users on facebook. It would consist of three questions:

1. Can you attach a file to an email and send it without anyone's assistance?
2. Do you know what any of the following abbreviations stand for: LAN, Wi-Fi, ROTFL, IMO, or PC
3. Do you know how to text message?

If the answer to all three questions is "No", the prospective facebook user will only be granted access to a new site called Facebook Lite. They would be able to have a profile and post pictures and messages, but would only be allowed to view other people's profiles, pictures, and walls. This would be good for a certain parent I know. Because she doesn't seem to know what "tagging a photo" means and has thus far tagged herself in 7,642 photos that she's not in.

The ### Will Remain A Mystery

So I was getting a new cell phone plan last year and they asked me if I had a particular number I wanted to request. And I found that I was not at all prepared for that question. If I had known I could pick my own number, I would've brought a list! But I got excited anyway since I still had time to pick one before they activated the account. Obviously, I had to stick to my area code, but they gave me a list of five or six combinations to choose from for the next three numbers. And then I could pick the last four. I started scrambling. I eliminated anything with a 1 or a 0 in it, because those numbers don't have letters on their keys. I was always jealous of those businesses that spelled stuff with their phone numbers, and I wanted in on the action.

See, when I got my first apartment, I got bored (really, really bored) one day and decided to figure out what my phone number spelled. It turned out I was one letter away from ###-MY-GERMAN. But if people dialed the whole thing, it wouldn't matter that they dialed the last 6 for the 'N'. So that's how I gave my number to my friends. And it was awesome. And no one ever forgot my number.

So they finally gave me a chance to do the same thing with my cell phone. I huddled myself in a corner with a pen and paper, sweating onto my new cell phone's keypad, trying to rearrange letters and hoping my slight dyslexia would finally serve a purpose. I figured if I could come up with a really cool word out of the last seven digits, I could just tell people to call me at ###-COOL-MAN or something like that. I picked 6-7-6 for the fourth, fifth, and sixth numbers because I figured I could start with "MR." something after the area code. And I felt like something awesome would strike me at any moment. The problem was that I had a pregnant wife who was not amused, a one-year old boy with the attention span of a one-year old (shocking, right?), and a cell phone saleswoman who was wishing she hadn't said anything and hoping I would just pick something and get out of the store so she could leave on time. Eventually I heard the stupid "sales associate" (cell phone lady) say, "What about 3-7-3-9? That spells DREW. Didn't you say your son's name was Andrew?!" And she said it all cheery like she had figured it out and cracked the case. But I told my wife that I didn't care how late we stayed there or how upset she got, I was gonna find something that worked! And she could walk home for all I cared and glare at me like that all she wanted to. It wasn't gonna change my mind about the fact that....

So 30 seconds later, we were headed home and my number was officially ###-676-3739. And I felt pretty defeated. The only thing I could come up with that number was ###-MR-N-DREW, which is stupid. No one would think that was funny or clever. But then my slight (self-diagnosed) dyslexia kicked in and I thought I saw something else. When I switched the 'D' and the 'E', I saw the word "NERD". Then I realized that the 'W' was on the same key as the 'Y'!

So now my cell phone number is ###-MR-NERDY. And I will never change it.

Parental Thesauruses

Being a parent is just as awesome and satisfying a job as people told me it would be. And it's just as frustrating and difficult as my parents claimed it was when I was a kid. But what I've really been surprised about is the little perks that come with being a parent. Perks like the ability to ignore conventional medical wisdom and wipe my son's nose with my hand and rub it on the grass. Or the new ability my wife and I have to hold a child in one arm, keep the other kid back with a foot, and take a casserole out of the oven without burning anyone. But, by far the best unforeseen perk is the training we've been getting as game night competitors.

Let me explain. My family and I had family game night growing up. It wasn't always official or planned, but we'd play all the board games and party games we could think of. We played Taboo, Charades, Pictionary, Stratego, Boggle, Life, Scrabble, Skip Bo, Uno, and Yahtzee to name a few. Yeah, we were complete and total nerds (that's not even a comprehensive list by the way). But I think I would be even better at some of those games now because of being a parent. I know I'd be better at Pictionary because I have to draw stuff for my son now. And if you can get a two-year old to figure out that you're drawing an elephant, it's perfect training for Pictionary. My stick figures don't cut it anymore, so I've graduated to advanced figure drawing, level 2. Which means I am able to draw non-stick people figures who don't have distorted faces or hands (most of the time). And I've even better at Charades and Scrabble. Because there are certain words we don't/can't/shouldn't say in front of my son now because he can repeat anything he hears. We don't use bad language, but certain things are inappropriate for a toddler. And it's a lot easier to stop my son using the term "stupid-head" if we stop saying it altogether. And it's only funny to hear him say "that's stupid" when we're at home. Not so much when we're at church. So we've learned to spell naughty words really fast so he doesn't hear them. Hence the new Scrabble skills (although, to be honest, I was already an excellent Scrabbler). And the Charades come in handy when we're too tired to spell multiple words. That way, if we want to ask the other spouse if it's okay for him to "go outside" and play with a "ball" or if he can have one more "cookie" before we "go to the store", we don't have to sound like a spelling bee on fast-forward. We can just use gestures and motions, and he's none the wiser.

But my favorite is the Taboo training. Because we have to find the strangest ways to say stuff. This weekend, my son was feeling a little sick. And I wanted to ask my wife if we had any children's Tylenol with us. But my son knows the words "Tylenol" and "medicine" and the phrase "give to Andrew". So I found myself saying, "Honey, do we have any... uh... toddler's pain reliever to give to... our male offspring?" And we have to do this all the time. Because I'd rather him not see me eat dessert at 4:30 in the afternoon or even hear me ask for it. So the other day I had to ask my wife if we had any "non-vanilla baked good with buttercream topping" (chocolate cake) left over. And then if we had any "frozen dairy baked goods companion" (ice cream) in the freezer. Then I had to eat it alone in the garage so he couldn't find me.

$0,000 Blogfan Challenge UPDATE

For everybody who has been following the clues of the $0,000 Blogfan Challenge and has been a little frustrated, here's a little help.

Clue 1- All words found and unscrambled:
"It's another one of what you've been reading..."

Clue 2- All words found and unscrambled:
"Circus men who eat too much. Big pants, large shoes and lots of blush."

Solve these two clues and you will be on the final step of the challenge. This might help you get a little closer to winning that magazine subscription!