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Saturday, January 10, 2009

My husband's new name.

The other night, we celebrated my Grandmother's eighty-eighth birthday at Grecian Gardens. Grandmother's party is always a rocking good time. Seriously. My Grandmother, mother of seven, grandmother of thirteen and mother-in-law to many, knows how to party. So did our waitress who, without being asked, brought me a second Stoli O and club soda before dinner. Do you see where this is headed? Because my family likes to party, bottles of wine kept magically appearing - and disappearing - throughout dinner. I had almond-crusted salmon, by the way, and enjoyed it immensely, along with the Greek salad that came with. There are times when iceberg lettuce trumps all others.

  • The Wedge Salad: A quarter of a head of iceberg, chopped tomatoes, crumbled bacon and blue cheese, both dressing and crumbled types. At Dianne's on Devine, my friend Lisa swears by ordering it with a side of vinaigrette. Excellent.

    Wedge Salad at Dianne's

  • The Low Carb Thickburger at Hardee's: Mock if you will. Call me out as a hypocrite next time I ramble on about eating local food. I don't care. The Low Carb Thickburger rules.

    The Low Carb Thickburger at Hardee's

  • Greek Salad: I've had it with fancy lettuces and I'll always prefer the crisp, cool taste of iceberg. This one, served with a tasty Gyro, was consumed at Devine Foods.

    Greek Salad with a Gyro at Devine Foods
But I digress. When we came home, I was babbling - coherently enough, but my husband doesn't listen. Until he does.

"What did you just call me?"

"I didn't call you anything!" I responded, bluffing indignantly, as I couldn't remember what I'd been rambling about.

"You did! You just called me 'Timothy Farthead'!"

I definitely did not, but I like it. My husband is now a small British boy with short pants, a cute little cap and gastrointestinal problems. I'm still trying to figure out what I did say that sounded like "Timothy Farthead." Oh well, some things remain a mystery.

Anyhow, like it or not, "Timothy Farthead" it is, "TF" for short. Long-running jokes reduce the likelihood of a couple being torn asunder, because they're stuck with these really funny jokes no one else will get. I fully intend to insert Timothy Farthead into our shared lexicon - TF's and mine, that is.

We have another joke - hundreds actually, but most of them aren't funny. The Mr. Potatohead ear is very funny. While I can't remember the dawn of the joke, it involves taking turns hiding a Mr. Potatohead ear where the other person will find it. Jokes like this are particularly helpful, especially when the other person finds it in the middle of a fight, because they're suddenly reminded that no one else will ever get their jokes. I once hid it by cramming it into my husband's stick deodorant. Another time, I struggled to cram it into a bottle of B vitamins. Of course he couldn't get it out, so he waited until he finished the vitamins, took the bottle outside and, after carefully inserting it into a paper bag, smashed it. And hid the ear in my bedside table. That's love, y'all*.

Namasté, y'all!

* I know you're all wondering where it is. So was I. Weeks ago, I hid it behind the B-Vitamins in his medicine cabinet. Now we know he doesn't take his vitamins. Now I've hidden it somewhere else. Game ON!

Mr. Potato Head Ear

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome! PLUS, I lived in West Columbia till I was 10, and we used to go to Grecian Gardens after church on Wednesday nights. YAY! I remember loving their salads.

Libby said...

You make such a lovely point about inside jokes deepening the relationship of family. Love this post.

Anne Wolfe Postic said...

Doh! My husband directed me to this article, published three days before my entry:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/fashion/08spy.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=%22Game%20on%22&st=cse

She makes the same point, more or less, but is a better writer. She even uses the phrase "Game on." I swear I didn't read that article. In fact, I've been meaning to write about the Potatohead Ear for a while now and haven't gotten around to it. Swear! I feel so unoriginal.

This is almost long enough to be called a blog post.