A Key Misunderstanding

Some years ago, when Pod-Man was about four or five, he was in a restaurant where the waitress made a dessert suggestion:

Waitress: Would you like to try the key-lime pie?

Pod-Man: Do you use real cats?

Waitress: Real cats?

Pod-Man: Yeah — in the feline pie.

True Story

I had this lay-over in Louisville, two/three hours to kill between busses, and I knew of this bar + grill that was really nice, Zama’s. You know the kind of place, lots of C+W and nothing after 1971 on the jukebox, thin-patty Velveeta cheeseburgers and potato chips, water-damaged photographs of every Kentucky Derby winner since 1936 on the wall, omnipresent smell of stale beer, coin-op pool table, tin ceiling, old lady behind the bar who’s nice to you like an aunt, no two tables or chairs alike: a regular joint.

My problem is, I can’t remember how to get there from the Grayhound Station. So I go across the street to the Seelbach Hotel. The current Seelbach was built in 1905 in opulent Victorian style which it has maintained to the present day. The old Seelbach, which it replaced, is where they invented the Mint Julep back around 1830 or so. This hotel has so much decorum that people speak in a whisper in the lobby.

So I go up to the desk and I ask the clerk, “Can you help me find a place around here?”

“Why, of course!” She was a very gentile girl, about twenty-three and very well brought up.

“I’m looking for a bar called Zama’s.”

“Zama’s?” the girl was incredulous, “That place is a dump!”

“Oh,” I asked brightly, “You’ve been there?”

Totally Nebraska

My grandmother lived in a small farming community in the bluff country of Nebraska. Everyone there had known her all their lives and, when she died, the neighboring families took turns cooking meals for my grandfather in the weeks following.

I went back for the funeral and saw this hospitality first hand. One evening at dinner, I commented to a nice young woman who had just brought over a dish: “Gee, we never have casseroles, and now I’ve had three in the last two days.”

“Oh — doesn’t your wife cook?”

Got penis?

About a week after Bean-Girl was born, her umbilical chord dried up and fell off. This worried Pod-Man a great deal, since he had something that stuck out there that he very much did not want to dry up and fall off. We explained to him that nothing was wrong, that his umbilical chord had already fallen off, and that there was nothing “missing” from Bean-Girl. Pod-Man was only about two-and-a-half at the time, and he was very unclear of the concept that boys had penises and girls did not, so he took to asking people about it. One Sunday afternoon my friend Don came over. Pod-Man answered the door and pointed right at Don’s crotch, asking:

Pod-Man: Have a penis?

Don: No thanks, I already have one.

One Way?

So, I'm walking past Moody Bible Institute when this kid comes up to me. He's probably a new student there and has the idea that passers by are interested in his message about Jesus. (You get guys like that every September, when classes resume; by October they've learned their lesson.) So he comes up to me ...

Evangelist: Jesus is the road to Heaven!

Dutchman: I-55 is the road to Joliet.

Evangelist: No, no! There's only one way to Heaven!

Dutchman: Yeah? Well there's lots of ways to Joliet.

Now You Know

Wife-Mate’s little four-year-old nephew was over for the afternoon and had been left in my care. The kid never seemed to have an answer or an opinion about anything, answering every question “I don’t know.” Just to test to see if he had any thoughts of his own, I asked ...

Dutchman: What’s your favorite food?

Nephew: I don’t know.

Dutchman: Well, let’s go look it up!

So I took him to the kitchen and pulled out the phone book. He couldn’t read, so he had no idea that I was just making this up. After much earnest flipping of the pages, pretending to look for his name, I announced ...

Dutchman: Ah, there it is! Says your favorite food is pizza!

Nephew: Really? What else does it say?

Dutchman: Says that your favorite sport is basketball, and that your favorite movie is “Citizen Kane.”

Nephew: But, I’ve never seen “Citizen Kane.”

Dutchman: Well, young man, you’re in for a treat! It’s your favorite!

A week later I found out that my sister-in-law had been complaining to Wife-Mate. It seems that I had putt some fool notion about “Citizen Kane” being her son’s favorite movie into his head, and now he was pestering her to let him see it.

Parenting Lesson #1

My sister-in-law had come by our shop to help out with a really big job and she had brought her little four-year-old son with her. Easily bored, the kid was soon asking ...

Nephew: C’n I go outside to play?

Sister-In-Law: No, It’s not safe to play on the sidewalk downtown.

Undeterred, the little boy kept asking ...

Nephew: C’n I go outside to play? — C’n I go outside to play? — C’n I go outside to play? — C’n I go outside to play?

So, my sister-in-law kept saying “no,” but at last she snapped ...

Sister-In-Law: Why do you keep asking me that?

Nephew: Because if I ask you again, and again, and again — you’ll say yes!

About half-an-hour later, he wanted something else and he asked Wife-Mate ...

Nephew: Auntie, c’n I have a Coke?

Wife-Mate: No.

Nephew: (Begins crying.)

Sister-In-Law: Now what’s wrong?

Nephew: If I ask Auntie again, and again, and again — she still won’t say yes!