laughs

this summer my dear friend ellie sent me a surprise package o' fun in the mail. the package contained a card and a book i hadn't heard of before called "sh*t my dad says" by justin halpern. in the card ellie indicated that she thought the book was absolutely hilarious, and she thought that i could use some laughs. i took it on our family trip to minnesota, but malena was on that trip with us, so time for reading never really happened for me and so i didn't even crack open page one. on the trip to vegas without malena a few weeks later, i had time on the plane to read and i figured that book would be the perfect companion for the flight. my seat was in the middle between nerd and barrett. i think that i must have laughed out loud and then said "you have to read these lines" about 5 times each on the flight. as you can imagine, they were thrilled with my constant interruptions (but they did laugh) while they were trying to read their own books. the book has expletives the entire way through, so if those would be offensive to you, you won't make it far with this book. if you don't mind such things, you will likely find it as hilarious as ellie and i (and barrett who also immediately read it cover to cover in vegas) did. reading that book is the time this summer that i remember clearly laughing that hard, i think that i may have literally slapped my knee at one point (but there is no actual proof). it felt so good to laugh that hard, it was almost as if i had forgot what that felt like. i realized then how much i missed a good, side-aching, tears-inducing laugh.

caveat - i wouldn't talk to malena in this way. but, we are potty training right now which means a lot of laundry and clean ups when things don't go according to plan. when i was flipping through the book yesterday, i found this line again that made me laugh..."you are four years told. you have to sh*t in the toilet. this is not one of the those negotiations where we’ll go back and forth and find a middle ground. this ends with you sh*tting in a toilet.”

i packed up that book yesterday to send to my friend josh (josh - you are going to looooove it, i guarantee it) and was laughing as i put it in the mailing envelope. now josh will get the book and some laughs. the fun is on its way to his mailbox in wisconsin.

thank you ellie, you gave me something that i needed right when i needed it. perfect timing my friend.