Slow But Steady Wins the Race

One of the things we do every night at dinner is "The Test". "The Test" appears on the comics/word search/crossword page of the Seattle Times. There are 3 levels, 3 questions in each level, with subjects that vary each day from geography to science to literature to pop culture...you get the drift. The Spouse reads the questions, The Child and I compete to answer them. There's a whole liturgical rigamarole around this which we need not get into. Suffice to say, if the questions regard Henry VIII and his six wives, mama be a'slam dunkin'.

So last night we finished the quiz and then, sneaky clever parentals that we are, we invited The Child to quiz us (short hand for "go over some of the stuff you need to review for school so that you freaking end up graduating and setting yourself on a life path isn't summed up in the phrase, 'Welcome to Walmart').

She warmed up with some riddles. One of them began with "A cowboy rides into town"... which inspired The Spouse to interrupt with a drawled, "A dawg rides into town"... The Child looked confused and I start to giggle because this is the old "I'm lookin' for the man who shot my pa" joke but then, in lighting flash with no prompting from any other quarter I go, "OH!" and start laughing hysterically.

Because for the first time in 51 years...51 freaking years, people!...I actually got the joke.

Things I Know For Absolutely Certain Sure: #82

Every evil genius requires a minon.

You don't have to read more than a couple comic books to figure that out.

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

The Child had to take a naturalization test in Social Studies. She administered it to me. I am happy to report that I only got one question wrong*. I was very proud of myself. I guess this means I can stay in the country.









*How many representatives are there in Congress? I said 345. It's really 435. At least I had all the correct numbers.