I gave a friend a perfectly nice Christmas pig and she surreptitiously returned it to my lawn in the dead of 7pm 12 months later.  After the season for winged pigs on one’s lawn was over I returned it to her lawn.

I had a student with me who made the sign ” Winged Attack Pig- Don’t be fooled by the halo”.   After we settled it in on the lawn and set up the sign we got back in the car. She was silent a moment and then said, ” I’ve never done anything like this before.”

That’s what happens when you have a sheltered childhood.

Walking by two best friends in class today, I heard one say very seriously to the other:

“You know, when you laugh, you sound just like a deranged billy goat.”

Today my seniors asked me what I thought about when I heard the word pancakes.

Me: Umm….food?

Them: The first thing you think of isn’t a girl with her chest pressed up on a window? How about waffle? Did you know that waffle means vagina or sex?

Well, now I just feel stupid.

Me: What, is this like, a thing now?

Them: No! We’ve never heard of it. And we’re the cool kids!

The reason for the inanity of this conversation was  the fact that the members of  a volleyball competition  had their team names nixed for being inappropriate. This was determined by running every team name through the urban dictionary to see what came up.

I started searching.  Did you know that window can mean slut?  And book. You want to talk trash about a girl and not get caught?

” Hey, did you read that  book last night?  You get past the title and into those tables of contents?”

Set, as in mathematical sets, and set in volleyball, can also mean sex. Any play on words containing set (it was volleyball after all) was not allowed.

I believe  I have been a serial potty mouth.

Honor. That can be some pretty disgusting stuff involving body fluids and excretions.

Character is a polite way to refer to a drunk.

I couldn’t stop myself.

I typed in Spanish. Interesting sexual positions.

I typed in French. Do you really have to ask?

This site, I might add, is a user generated  site. Anyone can contribute. Have a party. Think stuff up. Imagine what you could do with Washington monument.

So breakfast foods and anything with set, which happens to be the term used in volleyball, were all denied.

Only the urban dictionary, manufactured by teenagers with creative minds, was the standard by which all these names were investigated.

Interestingly,no one googled any names. So the Reality Kings, with the hashtag hot mommas, was approved.

Check it out. The first fifty hits are a porn site.

There is no  logic in  this place.

Text to  my daughter today.

Me: Did you send your Dad a lobster costume?

Her: No. it was for you.

Me: It was addressed to your Dad and it was for a dog.

Her: Well, I read the reviews. They didn’t have one for a cat.

Me: Ok. I got the shark tatoos.

Last year I bought a friend a santa cow and a winged pig and left it on her doorstep.

I should have staked them to her lawn with concrete blocks.

This year I see this picture posted.

I thought perhaps this was just a photo op to annoy me. Apparently not.  They came in the dead of night. Or 7 p.m.

It isn’t nice to return gifts. The pig no doubt feels unwanted and unloved.  We have not a single decoration up this year. But we have a light up flying pig.

When I was a kid, blue collar workers from Philadelphia would come down on weekends and live in boathouses, shacks built out over the water on Clam Creek.  One lady named Becky, who in  my memory was about 80, sat outside on a bench all day and drank beer. All day. I once went in her boathouse and looked in the refrigerator. It had nothing but Budweiser and a jar of relish.

When I was about thirteen I brought one of my school friends down there during the summer. As we walked down the aisle, he whispered to me, ” EVERYONE here is drinking beer!”

I’m like, ” So what?”

He said, ” Yeah, but its only ten o’clock in the morning.”

My daughter’s friend from high school remembers that my daughter asked me if she could go to a party and I said no. She had to stay home and help fix the bulkhead.

I don’t remember saying that. I thought we just used her for test borings and drilling.

Last night I texted my daughter.

” I hope you remember that I want a remote controlled inflatable shark for my birthday.”

My birthday coincides with one of my sophomores. This is the card I got her. “YOU’RE FOUR!”

I also gave her a princess crown and wand and some zombie body parts that grow in water. The dollar store is a magical place.

She handed me a soft five by six inch item wrapped in Christmas paper. If you’re reading this: CHEAPSKATE!

The following is what makes  me believe in astrology. Only someone like me would do this to someone like me.

I unwrapped it. There was a second layer gift wrapped. And a third. Then it was wrapped in saran wrap. Then more gift wrap. then more saran wrap. It took me ten solid minutes to get to the center. There were 42 layers of wrap. Yes. I counted.

And what I find at the center is this: a 3×5 index card that says : Happy Birthday! HA! Love, name name name name name.

Me:  You shouldn’t have. Really.

Then some others got up with the real gift. A remote controlled inflatable killer whale , five feet long.

Does it get any better than this? I couldn’t wait to tell the French teacher.

Whale sans fins.

She stared off into space with a perplexed look on her face for a long time. Finally she said

“This does not bode well for me.”

You betcha.

Sometimes when I text my daughter, days will go by before I get a response. This past week it was four days. I usually have to text something that will jolt her into a response, but she  randomly left a response  at 3 A.M.

At a more normal hour…

Me: I was about to text you that after the explosion, our house fell into a sinkhole and we are living in a tent on the sidewalk.

Her: I spent yesterday sleeping.

Me: Aren’t you even worried about us getting frostbite living in a tent? That’s ok. Ignore the woman who suffered in labor 9 hours to bring you into the world.

Her: Where did the tent come from?

Me: The rescue mission.  I could have been driving a new car. But no. We bought you a thimble instead.

( For those who do not read this blog, we bought her a boat when she was ten. When asked what special thing she got for Christmas, she replied, “I got a thimble!“)

Her: The thimble definitely would cut into those car savings, that’s true.  Especially if you get the thimble at the rescue mission. They just jack up thimble prices like nobody’s business.

Me: We got you the best thimble money could buy.  You only talk to  me for my entertainment value.

Her: When I’m low on tweets, really.

Me: I am so showing up at your office unannounced wearing pink hair curlers. And white socks with sandals.  And I will address you as “pumpkin” in a loud carrying voice.

Her: And everyone will say, that explains a lot.

Me: Meet me at the elevator. I’m wearing clogs.

Her: 🙂   ( a smiley face? )

Me: You wait. I’ll take my birthday off and inconveniently appear.  You don’t take me seriously.

Her: And that is so strange given your somber demeanor.

Me: Hey, I can be funereal and lugubrious if need be. And morose.

Her: You just like using words with lots of vowels and/or syllables

Me: What’s the matter? Did you have to look them up?

Her: You do know I’m still at work, right?  ( ah, now we’re getting defensive)

Me: I can’t help it if you waste too much time thinking up witty comebacks.

Because she could have answered all the other posts at 3 AM too.