A Lion In The Dessert

If your life isn't all that its cracked up to be,

maybe you could hang out with our family more often.

I could quote Benjamin Franklin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Charles Boudalaire but today I quote the likes of the teenagers in my own home that offer a poetic perspective to some of life's finer points. I just plain love these priceless insights for us adults who have all but forgotten what it means to be young at heart. So to lighten up the mood of this blog, I offer–for your enjoyment, dear reader–some priceless quotes from my children. 

"You're wasting my life!"

My twins (age 12 as of the writing off this blog) are treasure troves of quotable sound bites. When one was incessantly aggravating the other, he simply turned to his brother and said; "Stop wasting my time with this–you're wasting minutes of my life!" Often, siblings get each other so frustrated, they can't help but over exaggerate their point. While it's not a categorically wrong statement (actually holds some cut-to-the-bone truth), it does kind of imply the person saying this is trying REALLY hard to get their point across. 

Gold. Pure gold.

Pick up lines.

"Did you hear the one about the multi-racial group
of stock photo models?"

Having three boys in the house–all girl-crazy–they compare (failed) pick up lines. It's hilarious! Now, I must say most of them are awful. The boys haven't yet grasped why these disingenuous and cheesy pick-up lines don't work on their intended targets. I'm sorry for having missed what is sure to be near endless eye-rolling by the scores of hapless young teenage girls who have fallen victim to these horrific attempts at cross-gender conversational ice-breaking. I will spare you the vomit-inducing attempts at verbal swagger but I will share one my son Alex came up with:

"Hey girl, I'm glad I've got my library card–cause I'm checking you out!"

Honestly. I don't know why that didn't at least get a smile and/or a phone number… 

Floptuous.

We've all have had fun with song lyrics we don't understand. My (16 year-old) daughter had once asked me about a word in a popular Black-Eyed Peas song. The lyric was, "… flock to us." My daughter, however, heard something different. So she asks me "Dad, what's floptuous?" 

What indeed. It's times like this when I wonder if songs might not be better if we just made our own lyrics stick then the ones the songwriters wrote? No? Its just me, then. 

Sandy Claws

My kids' rather wry sense of comedy may stem from their ancestry.

Namely, me.

It may have started when I answered the question, "Dad what was the funniest joke you heard as a kid?" I shared the following answer;

What do you call a lion in the desert at Christmas Time?
"Sandy Claws"

Teddy and his infectious sense of humor 

I couldn't tell you the exact year I heard that one for the first time, but when I did, it busted me up for weeks. Even as I type this I can't choke back a giggly smirk. Maybe it was the absurdity of the question and the completely out-of-left-field answer. Maybe it was the processing of this ridiculous scenario that go to me. All I know is... that's funny! (I mean c'mon, Lion's aren't EVER in the dessert, and if they were, why at Christmas?!) Trust me, the more brain power you put behind that one, the more giddy you get.  

Laughter is the stuff of life. A good hearty laugh secretes endorphins, lowers blood pressure, helps stabilize moods and makes us feel good.

Otherwise, we'd all be... "Lion Around". Huh? Huh?