The cleaning pledge

Over the past month or so our house has incurred quite a bit of wreckage, what with all the items that are normally stored away suddenly deciding, on their own, to rearrange themselves, and various Christmas decorations lying around that we do not like and do not want to pack away again, but do not dare to give away for fear the givers will find out. We surveyed this damage and did what most reasonable home occupants do in such situations: We declared a state of emergency and waited for reinforcement troops to arrive. When none were forthcoming, we blamed FEMA and set to work on Plan B: Invite some guests over.

Inviting guests to one's home is a time-honored method of ensuring that one's home gets clean. Indeed, some individuals (known as "bachelors") use this as their sole method of housecleaning. It is important to remember, however, that one does not invite guests over in order to help clean the house. That would be rude, although it is becoming perfectly acceptable, in some circles, to invite guests over to help with certain chores, in the guise of "celebrating," such as decorating one's Christmas tree or even helping to paint a room ("Come help us celebrate our new home, every wall of which is Cumulus Cotton!"). If one chooses to ask guests to "celebrate" by helping with such tasks, one must be prepared at the end of the "celebration" to look for new friends.

But back to us. Every time we use Plan B, we always vow to henceforth start using Plan A, which is: Do not get the house messy enough to have to use Plan B. So far, this has happened only by accident. But now, having decided we kind of like being able to walk freely about the house with no fear of something springing out and grabbing us, we have prepared and posted, in the doorway to each room, our new Pledge to Live Like This All the Time. We now recite this pledge each time we enter a room:

I hereby pledge to defend, with my whole being, the right of this room to remain free from being overrun by clutter, "clutter" being defined as anything not nailed to the wall or floor. I will promptly and cheerfully restore any objects I remove to their rightful place, "rightful place" not being defined as "anywhere they happen to land." If I introduce anything new into a room (subject to spousal approval), I pledge to find a proper home for it and forbear from leaving it in the bag in which it was transported, thereby preventing a buildup and possible toxic, spontaneous combustion of plastic bags. I will promptly attend to mail, designating to my spouse's attention all such not marked "YOU HAVE WON!!" I will not assume that socks, underwear, and other necessities know their own way to the drawer, nor that shoes thrive best in open-air conditions, such as in the middle of the floor.

So far, we have experienced great success in keeping our pledge. We'll let you know how Day 2 is.

P.S. Joe would like everyone to know that the state of our house is really not that bad.

Conversation piece

Persons who are knowledgeable about interior design, which does not include me, advise the inclusion of "conversation pieces" among one's furnishings. By this they generally mean "something that costs a lot of money and looks weird." Conversation pieces are popular to give as recycled wedding gifts, being discreetly passed from couple to couple ("We gotta get rid of this vase that looks like Grover Cleveland. Who do we know that's getting married this year?"). Some of these objects have been in wedding circulation since 1959.

We have two conversation pieces in our home, although we did not get them via the wedding route. They are Joe's stereo speakers, purchased in the heyday of enormous, earth-shaking speaker systems, and lovingly transported to his every domicile since then. They don't stir much conversation among our guests, but they feature prominently in discussions between the two of us, as can be seen here:

Me: Those speakers are huge. Can't we get smaller ones?

Joe (in an injured tone): Those are hi-fi speakers. They're classic!

Me: Surely they make good smaller speakers now. Aren't those, like, a hundred years old?

Joe: Those are hi-fi speakers. They're classic!

Occasionally this conversation varies a bit. For instance, sometimes as I am offering my observations on the magnitudinous size of the speakers, I might wave a large metal object threateningly in their direction, whereupon is heard pitiful wailing and gnashing of teeth as Joe rushes to protect his 780-pound twins.

Being a female, and therefore unable to understand the primal male attraction to anything in the upper reaches of decibels, I was at a distinct disadvantage for inducing him to part with the speakers, short of making actual contact between them and the large metal object referred to earlier. Quite by accident, I hit upon the solution: Enlist the assistance of another male.

When we moved to our present location, a male friend of ours had the unenviable job of carrying the speakers into the house.

"Those speakers are huge. Joe should get smaller ones," he said to me.

"Thank you!" I said, feeling gratified.

"You can get really good small speakers now," he said.

"Really," I said, beginning to see how the removal of the speakers might be accomplished, with Joe's full cooperation. I asked our friend for a small favor. He understood immediately.

"You know," he said to Joe later, "you could get some really awesome smaller speakers to replace those old ones you have."

Joe did not wail. He did not gnash his teeth. He merely looked thoughtful.

And thus the seed was planted.

It took two and a half years, but the speakers have now gone to a new home. They are still sparking conversation, though. Mostly one-sided.

"I should have sold them for more."

We have seen the future, and it is lawn darts

Every now and then Joe and I get a glimpse of what life will be like for us as old people, assuming we make it that far and it is still fashionable to have old people around, and the rest of society does not feel like they have to help us into our next, permanent, residence.

Sometimes these glimpses occur when our church goes to sing for nursing home residents. We do this to provide the residents some quiet, uplifting moments, which may or may not include napping.

Although many of the residents are hard of hearing, they have developed ingenious ways of communicating with one another. One gentleman, in particular, uses a system of readily understood hand gestures to get his point across. One -- a circular motion to the side of his head -- clearly indicates: I strongly feel that you are not in possession of your complete mental faculties at this time. Or perhaps ever. Another short gesture eloquently expresses this message: Touch the volume on the TV again and you will never leave this room alive. Such gestures are a charming backdrop for our singing of such favorites as "Amazing Grace."

There are large calendars placed strategically throughout the facility, so that if, say, you head to the activity room to do a puzzle but you have a habit of forgetting where you are headed and why, you can just look at the calendars all along the way as a reminder. "Oh, right," you say, "I'm going to go do a puzzle." In my case, I might also say to myself, "If I'm walking all this way, I sure hope I like puzzles."

One such calendar stood in front of us as we sang in a particular corridor. With mild curiosity we read over the events planned for the month.

"If we stick around 'til 3:30, we can watch an Elvis movie," Joe whispered.

"I'm coming back at 10:30 tomorrow," I whispered back. "Music and massage."

There were many other events listed for January. Pet visits. Various movies whose actors are all long dead. Lawn darts.

Lawn darts? In January? At a nursing home?

We thought of the gentleman with the hand gestures, and made a note to be far, far away on Lawn Dart Day.

A month to celebrate

The holidays, though enjoyable, are a great distraction to one's productivity at work. This is of course why we have holidays, to make us forget the mundaneness of our daily lives, but one cannot survive wholly on holidays, although the ancient Romans certainly tried. They had 159 official holidays each year, and everyone so heartily approved of not having to work half the year that they just kept adding holidays, until eventually they had 467 holidays per year, and Caesar had to adjust the calendar so they could fit them all in.

As I was saying, it is easy to get distracted from one's important daily duties during all the festivities. In January, after your have regained consciousness after eating too many cookies, candy, and fruitcake, you can truly refocus on what is important. If you are my department, what is important is to throw yourself enthusiastically into decorating for the next big holiday: Groundhog Day.

We editors are big on decorating. We make cute little faces on paper pumpkins for Halloween. We make cute little faces on paper snowmen for winter. Now, we are gearing up to make cute little faces on paper groundhogs.

At least I assume that is what we will do for Groundhog Day. Amazingly, there is no official protocol for decorating for this particular holiday. We were going to make cute little hearts and sprinkle them liberally around our cubicles in honor of Valentine's Day, but in the midst of our planning and excitement we were informed that the single people among us did not care for the idea of celebrating love. I believe very strong opinions were expressed on the subject. We therefore set about finding a replacement holiday. It was either that or get back to work, and like the Romans, we avoid that as much as possible.

There was some lengthy discussion on which replacement holiday we should choose, because there are an astonishing number of "holidays" in February. National Grapefruit Month. International Flirting Week. Thank a Mailman Day. If you wish to fit even more in, you might start a National Hour, such as National Blame Someone Else Hour.

My personal favorite, which I endorsed to my co-workers, was Spunky Old Broad's Day. I did not exactly have a clear vision for how this might be translated into a decorating opportunity, but it sounded like it might have potential. Some people were of the opinion, however, that this might offend a certain segment of the office population, which I have difficulty understanding, given that the median age of people working there seems to be roughly 7.6 years.

Those of single status who were not fond of the idea of celebrating Valentine's Day might take heart at this: the third week of February is designated as International Flirting Week. As with Spunky Old Broad's Day, I do not know how one might set about decorating for this day, but then that is likely not a concern of those who wish to celebrate it. Of course these two holidays could be combined, which would result in International Flirting With a Spunky Old Broad Day. If this were your type of thing, you might wish to extend it into a whole week.

Then there is International Thinking Day. In our opinion this is not a holiday at all, but a sneaky attempt by administration to make us do some actual work. (Please note that International Thinking Day is generally considered incompatible with International Flirting Day.) We much prefer No Brainer Day, which has long-established roots: At least 83% of the Roman holidays were called No Brainer Day.

February also hosts Return Shopping Carts to the Grocery Store Day. It is unclear whether this means to return them from the parking lot to the store, or from your house to the store.

In the spirit of neighborliness, there is Wave All Your Fingers at Your Neighbor Day. Another celebration involving waving is Hoodie Hoo Day, which is celebrated only in the northern hemisphere (presumably people in the southern hemisphere also celebrate Hoodie Hoo Day, only in August), wherein people are sick of winter and therefore, according to one Web site, "go out at noon, wave their hands over their head, and chant 'Hoodie hoo' " in an apparent attempt to impress any existing aliens of our complete imbecility. No, actually, this is done in the hopes of chasing away winter and inducing spring to come. To date, this has never been shown to be effective, although the aliens ARE completely convinced of our imbecility.

Too often we humans completely leave out our beloved pets from our celebrations. We therefore have Love Your Pet Day, Walking the Dog Day (which, in our neighborhood, occurs approximately 972 times per day per dog), and International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day.

After exhaustive research, and with very little actual work being accomplished, we in Editing have decided to stick with decorating for Groundhog Day. Our next task will be, in the spirit of the Romans, to lobby to have the day off.

The importance of appearing healthy

At this time of year -- the Sharing of Germs Season -- we are bombarded with advice for staying healthy, staying hydrated, staying away from every living thing that might possibly be a transmitter of germs, etc. If you do get sick, of course, the most important thing to know is: Keep your co-workers from finding out that you are sick.

If you do not take proper precautions to keep your illness from becoming known to others in the office, you will become the company pariah. One little sniffle can ruin years of good standing with your co-workers. They will shun you. Ridicule you. Make doctor appointments for you and make sure that you keep them by hiring someone resembling Attila the Hun to take you there -- but not to bring you back. Oh, yes, they will periodically ask how you are doing. But do not be fooled into thinking that this is because they are concerned with your well-being. They are concerned with one thing, and one thing only: making sure that whatever happens in your workspace, in terms of germ development, stays in your workspace. Toward this effort, your desk, your cubicle -- even likely your own person -- will periodically be sprayed with germ sanitizer, possibly by fellow employees whom you do not even know.

Infecting your co-workers with an illness is the worst possible office offense you could commit, next to taking someone else's lunch from the communal refrigerator (this is punishable by death, but only after the injured party has had an opportunity to torture you by force-feeding you his or her child's peanut butter and banana and string cheese sandwich).

Do not take comfort in the thought that your co-workers will eventually forgive you for getting them sick -- or for the possibility of getting them sick -- or even that they will forget the incident. Years later, whenever the subject of office illness comes up, someone is bound to say gravely, "Yeah, what about the season of '01-'02? Remember how Simpson got us all sick with the plague?" And everyone -- even employees who lived several states away at the time and had never heard of your company -- will glare in your direction.

The only possible way to atone for the grievous transgression of infecting your co-workers is (a) for someone else to come along with an even worse illness and to infect everyone, which will at least temporarily take the spotlight off you, or (b) to die of your illness, which will not make anyone forget that you got them sick, but at least will make them eventually forget you: "Yeah, remember back in '01-'02, that what-was-his name -- Sanford, Samson -- got us all sick? I forget whatever happened to him. Probably infecting some other poor saps somewhere else."

With these thoughts in mind, deal with your illness symptoms wisely at work. Cough discreetly, if at all. Blow your nose in a secluded, remote location where no one can hear you, preferably northern Canada. Above all, douse yourself in germ sanitizer before leaving for work. Better to have your co-workers think you have a serious drinking problem than for them to suspect the truth.

The plant that would not die

An unfortunate mistake was made during our Secret Santa gift exchange at work, in which I was given a poinsettia by someone who, obviously, was not aware of my inability to keep plants alive. Unfortunately, there is no national Registry of Individuals with Plant-Killing Tendencies, which would alert concerned citizens to those in their midst who, under no circumstances, are to be trusted with the welfare of a potted item, unless it is plastic. It is up to these individuals to know this weakness in themselves, and to admit it honestly to others, such as hinting, in some manner, their likes and dislikes on their Secret Santa list: I love to torture and kill hapless plants.

I failed to do this, and ended up, as I said, in possession of a beautiful poinsettia.

Knowing my problem, I tried to get intervention before the plant even left the office. I put it in plain sight in my work space and promptly forgot about it. By the second day, it looked like something recently released from a prison camp. It was crying out for help. I was crying out for help. It was hard to tell which of us was crying out for help more.

A few concerned co-workers, bless their souls, did try to intervene on the plant's behalf. "It needs water," they said in a helpful manner. After 12 people attempted to be helpful, I removed the plant to a less prominent position in my cubicle and put a sign on it: THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERN. YES, I HAVE RECEIVED WATER RECENTLY.

But no one seemed to recognize the enormity of the crisis, although there were whispers of doubt. "Do you think she's fit to take care of it?" "What will happen to it when she takes it home?" "Maybe we should call in Plant Social Services." They all seemed unwilling to become too involved, and in the end, no one tried to stop me when I finally took the plant home.

Once home, I tried to get help again. While we were away over Christmas, I delivered the poinsettia into the care of a neighbor, figuring that it would get the attention it needed there. I also figured that if it died, at least it would not be my fault.

But the poinsettia flourished there, and was returned to me healthy and whole. I heard a faint whimper escape from it when I brought it home.

Slowly, inexorably, the plant started departing this earthly life. The edges of the leaves turned black. I would come home from work to find the floor littered with wilted leaves. I was helpless to stop its demise. I had to obey the voices in my head that kept crying WATER THE PLANT. And so I watered it. Once a day. Twice a day. I lost count.

And then the voices told me to STOP WATERING THE PLANT. I stopped watering the plant. One day. Two days. I lost count.

Finally, with the poinsettia just a shadow of its former glorious self, the end seemed near. I was almost relieved. My anxiety over all those voices in my head, and the guilt over taking an innocent plant's life, would soon be over.

When there were just a few leaves left, I was ready to take it off life support and declare it deceased. But just as I was about to throw it away, I noticed that there were new leaves growing. New red leaves! New green leaves! I moaned. I couldn't throw it away now!

Despite my best attempts to destroy it, the poinsettia remains, a monument to the hardy plant spirit. Either that, or it just got lucky.

A joint mission against senility

We are told constantly that if we want to stave off Alzheimer's in our old age, there are certain things we should do while still young. I can't remember what they are, but a co-worker of mine does her part by memorizing her grocery list. She attempts to make words out of the first letter of each item on her list, which is a great way to stimulate the brain, provided you (a) remember the word you created and (b) remember what all the letters stand for. Also (c) remember where the grocery store is.

Before a recent shopping expedition, my co-worker, Pat, studied her short list of items, trying to make an acrostic that would help her remember them. O. M. Y. M. M.

"MOMMY," she said to her husband. "We need to get MOMMY at the store." And off they went.

I might point out here the willingness of Pat's husband to accompany her on this MOMMY mission. I have often pointed out, to a certain someone, the willingness of many of my friends' husbands to go grocery shopping with their wives, and what joy this must bring to a couple. However, this certain someone believes, very strongly, that there are MANY paths to joy, most of which do not lead down aisles of pickles and Ty-D-Bol.

My co-worker and her husband quickly gathered their items at the store. Obviously enjoying this special time with his wife, the husband asked, "Are we done yet?"

Pat looked through the items. "No, we still need one more M."

"I think we're done," he insisted.

"We only have OMMY," she said. "We need another M."

"Well, what is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said impatiently. "But it starts with M."

They stood in thought for some moments, visions of M items dancing in their heads. They already had mayonnaise. Did they need mineral water? Muesli? Mousetraps? Finally they gave up and headed to the checkout with their OMMY items.

They waited patiently for their turn to pay. "Mustard!" her husband suddenly shouted, startling everyone else in line.

Pat gave him a smug look. "I told you we needed another M."

So I highly recommend this technique of strengthening your memory cells. But if you are forced, through circumstances beyond your ability to manipulate your spouse's will, to do the grocery shopping ALONE, you might want to carry along the list of your grocery items anyway, just in case.

His game, her game

Number 3 on the Marital Dispute chart, following "Money: Hoard vs. Exchange for Something More Exciting" and "Silverware in the Dishwasher: Up vs. Down" (with a common variation, instituted mainly by males, being "Does Silverware Walk Itself to the Dishwasher?"), is "Recreational Enjoyment: Word Games vs. Non-Word Games."

I personally prefer nice, calm word games where everyone gets along. The women in my family consider Scrabble to be a cooperative game, in which players freely offer helpful advice on how another player's letters could be arranged into a word and where it might best fit on the board. This is done with no thought of how the suggested position might benefit ourselves. Keeping points is frowned upon, as it might damage someone's self-esteem.

Joe does not prefer word games. His favorite games all involve numbers in some manner, whether on dice or cards or scorecards, and the only assistance offered to other players is to help them further into debt, relieve them of some of their points, etc.

Thus you will surmise that Joe does not prefer a game like Bananagrams, the Scrabble-like game in which everyone makes his or her own board with letter tiles. Unfortunately for him, some of our friends LOVE Bananagrams. Joe has cleverly devised several methods for dealing with his dislike of this game. The first is that, when sent to fetch it, he returns nanoseconds later, claiming that it is not to be located. It must be lost! What a shame!

We do not send Joe to find Bananagrams anymore.

When this method of avoiding the game fails, and he is actually made to play it, Joe puts into motion his second method. While everyone else works feverishly to use up all their letter tiles, his tiles sit ignored, as he imagines how to inflict great bodily harm to the person who created this game. If the game has not ended by the time he has finished amusing himself with these thoughts, he cheerfully declines any assistance with his letters and sets about making words similar to the following:

jazry
lim
eaiuoc
retxl

He defends his unorthodox word choices by declaring: "I'm being creative."

But for the first time, Joe has discovered a word game that he actually likes. Or thinks he will like, as we have not actually played it yet. But it may perhaps be the solution that will help smooth over Marital Dispute #3. This panacea is called BuyWord, a game that, unfortunately, does not load the silverware in the dishwasher for you. But it does combine words and numbers. What has attracted Joe most to this game is its objective: that players "do their best to make the largest amount of money." This fits in quite nicely with his personal philosophy of both life and gaming, which is "to do my best to make the largest amount of money."

In this game players buy letters, arrange them into words, and then attempt to make a profit with those words. Unless you are me, in which case you stop at Step 2 -- arrange the letters into words -- and admire the beauty of the words you have created. With this you are content. There is no need to scheme about how you are going to use your beautiful words to cheat someone else out of their beautiful words.

It is possible that BuyWord, rather than helping solve Marital Dispute #3, will merely create a new dispute between spouses with varying gaming preferences, but luckily the game can be played by just one player. Theoretically, then, each person could play in his or her own preferred manner. It is unclear, however, how one goes about making a profit if there are no other players to cheat out of their mon---er, I mean to sell to. Perhaps the one-player version involves the dishwasher in some manner.

Game time

We have discovered two exciting board games for you and your family to enjoy, provided you and your family (a) hang out on the low reaches of the social totem pole or (b) display psychopathic tendencies.

The first game, as you will see, bears a slight resemblance to The Game of Life, which no doubt many of you are familiar with. The object of that game, of course, is to avoid the poorhouse by racking up as much money as possible, aided by your many tax deductions in the form of little plastic pink and blue children.

However, The Game of Life has now been taken to a whole new level. Unfortunately, this level is not up. I refer to The Game of Redneck Life, in which "the player with the most teeth remaining wins." But lest you think this is a game for losers, let me assure you that you have the opportunity to pursue 11 challenging careers in this game, including Monster Truck Announcer and Mullet Salon Operator. I personally feel cheated that my high school offered no preparation for becoming a Mullet Salon Operator. In fact, my high school didn't even teach us what that meant.

There are many other charming features to The Game of Redneck Life. Having trouble deciding how much education to pursue? No problem! A simple roll of two dice decides for you. You are thus assured of finishing at least 7th grade, which is fortunate, because a 7th-grade diploma is a must for becoming a Mullet Salon Operator.

Like the middle-class game of Life, The Game of Redneck Life allows players to marry and acquire children. But in Redneck Land this process may occur more than once, as long as you get unmarried first before marrying again (a rule that may seem unnecessarily restrictive to some). And if you have acquired (through no fault of your own, of course) too many kids, and you need more time to watch TV -- and who doesn't these days? -- you can simply parcel your kids out to the other players. Ah, sweet redneck life.

But this life is not all a bed of roses and TV. Brawls are a frequent occurrence throughout the game, and a consequence of participation is losing some of your teeth. This is bad, not only because you can lose your Mullet Salon Operator's license if you don't have at least a majority of your own teeth, but you could also lose the game. But take heart! You can buy back your teeth, and there appears to be no limit on how many you can buy back, so, although I haven't checked into this too closely, it appears possible to end the game with more than when you started. This is a benefit to the game that, for some reason, the manufacturers do not even mention.

If the Game of Redneck Life seems a little too tame for you, you might want to check out our second find: Run for Your Life, Candyman! This game is based on another popular game, Candy Land, which Wikipedia notes is a favorite first game for children because "it requires no ability to read and only minimal counting skills." This is also, by the way, the reason it is a favorite among many adults, although Wikipedia does not say that.

The main requirement for playing Candyman seems to be a willingness -- even eagerness -- to rip limbs from your opponents. Although this sounds harsh, scientific studies show that most adults, after being forced to play Candy Land 186 times in a row with their preschooler, are ready to pull apart anyone's limbs. Candyman is the perfect antidote, being, according to the box, a game for "2 to 6 mean-spirited players."

The rules for Candyman are complicated, so for simplicity's sake I have condensed them here into two parts:

1. You, playing a gingerbread figure, symbolically -- this is important -- bash other players' gingerbread figures, systematically knocking off their body parts.
2. They symbolically return the favor.

It is important to keep in mind that this bashing is symbolic, accomplished by drawing certain cards, and not actual. Forgetting this little detail may land you in quite a different type of finish line.

It is possible, even likely, to win Candyman having, say, only an arm left, although strategically it would be better to have a leg left, because this would make it easier to hop across the finish line. You might be better off playing Redneck Life, where at least you can only lose your teeth.

The gift that keeps on giving -- we're just not sure what

This happened because I was tired of seeing Joe wearing his favorite shirt every single day, and because I was tired of washing this shirt every other day. It is a baseball jersey from his workplace, complete with faux baseball player number and the requisite company name emblazoned where the player's name would normally be.

All my attempts to find a similar jersey in a sports store were thwarted. One place asked which team I wanted. It doesn't matter, I told the guy. I just want a baseball jersey. You can imagine the look he gave me.

So I turned to the Internet, which doesn't give looks like that. I found a site with tons of jerseys, and they had cute little sayings instead of players' names and numbers. There was even one that said "Joe." Nothing else. Just "Joe."

Perfect, I thought. It's personalized, and I don't even have to special order it. Or pay extra. It did briefly occur to me to wonder WHY there was a shirt with Joe's name on it. There was no reference to coffee, for instance. I easily dismissed my wonderings.

When the jersey came, it looked just like it had on the Web site: "Joe," written in a cute, offbeat sort of font. Then I turned the shirt over.

On the back, where there should have been just white space, it said "Mama." I am fairly certain the Web site made no mention that the back would read "Mama." I am also fairly certain that I did not request that it say "Mama."

I tried to imagine why it would say "Mama" on the back of my "Joe" shirt. I imagined another customer receiving his or her shirt and being surprised that it said absolutely nothing, because the "Mama" that was supposed to be on that shirt was on Joe's shirt.

Joe. Mama. Joe Mama. It sounded vaguely familiar. I began to suspect that this was not a mistake.

I consulted a neighbor on what the meaning of this might be, if indeed there was some meaning. Her husband suggested that it was a take on "Your Mama." This was worrisome. Was this some sort of gang-related lingo? An insult? Was this jersey something that, for safety's sake, Joe should not wear outside the house?

We set about educating ourselves on the term "Joe Mama," turning to the many enlightening Web sites that are long on urban knowledge but appear to regard correct spelling and punctuation as optional. We were alternately cheered and horrified by what we read. "Joe Mama" is an insult. "Joe Mama" is "frequently used in banter between friends." "Joe Mama" means "to be annoying, or make someone else mad." Said five times, it can be used as a way to "avoid listening to the negative, or worthless, comments of other people."

Joe was emboldened by this last revelation. Never again would he have to suffer the agonies of listening to a social boor! He could merely wear his new shirt, and when encountered by someone making negative or worthless comments, simply turn around every few minutes to let the person know: "I am cleverly avoiding listening to the negative, and worthless, things you are saying."

Unless, of course, the person is as clueless as we are.

Airplane traveler's prayer

Oh, Lord, when I find myself unable to sit next to my husband on the plane, and the plane is moving wildly about due to Your mighty winds, and I feel my fear begin to rise, please do not let me accidentally grab the arms of the nice gentlemen seated on either side of me. And if in my weakness and fear I begin to doze, please do not let me begin to droop onto the shoulder of one of these strangers, and slide, like a melting Popsicle, down onto the stranger's lap. If I do, please let him not notice.

Lord, watch over my husband, who is sitting in a different row. In particular, do not let there be a SkyMall magazine in his seat pocket. You know the temptations it presents to him -- the Chair Valet, the Pant Trolley, the Hula Chair. If in Your wisdom You see fit to allow a magazine to be in front of him, please keep him from its powers of suggestions. Give him the strength to ignore the lures of this tool of evil, and to use it only as a flotation device in the unlikely event of a water landing.

Oh, Lord, You are the provider of all things, and You desire that we not be concerned with material possessions. Nevertheless, please let my luggage be on this flight. Unlike the other passengers, whose carry-on luggage bulges with material possessions, all the underwear I own is in my checked suitcase. Please let it arrive in a timely manner at the luggage carousel, and let not any of my material possessions have escaped through the misdeeds of man.

I freely confess my great wrong in consuming enormous amounts of Diet Coke before embarking, and also in failing to visit the restroom in the terminal. You know, Lord (for You know everything, including, as the psalmist said, my downsitting and my uprising, though perhaps he was not referring specifically to the restroom), that I have vowed to never use the restroom on an airplane. Only Your great power can keep me from breaking this vow now. Above all, keep me from accepting another Diet Coke from the beverage cart.

Though this plane be small in Your sight, let it arrive safely at its destination, preferably with all of its passengers. Our times are all in Your hand, and I pray that the pilot's time to meet You would be some other day, when I am not on his plane. There are yet many destinations here on earth to be explored, and -- should my luggage indeed arrive unscathed -- much new underwear to be worn.

Amen.

How's the weather?

We are fresh from our visit to Michigan, where the weather this time of year -- let us not kid ourselves, any time of year -- is determined by a complex game of Weather Roulette. In a secret location there resides a giant weather wheel with sections labeled Snow; Rain; More Snow; Still More Snow; Freezing Rain Alternating with Balmy Hawaiian Breezes; Surprise Me; Absolutely No Weather At All; Maintain the Current Weather for 1,839 Consecutive Days or Until the State Economy Improves, Whichever Comes First; etc.

Despite official reports that the weather wheel is controlled by meteorologists with Ph.D.s, the job is often sublet to a group of toddlers, or possibly miniature schnauzers, no one is really sure which, including the meteorologists. Ideally the wheel is spun once per day, but since toddlers are not known for adhering to rules -- and no one knows how to explain the rules to schnauzers -- they spin the wheel whenever they feel like it, which is about every 3 nanoseconds. This causes Michigan's weather to swing wildly back and forth from, say, Still More Snow to Still More Snow.

Due to complaints about the cloudy, gloomy weather that often plagues the state, an effort was made to add a small sliver to the weather wheel labeled Sun, but those responsible for this effort were accused and found guilty of tampering with nature and attempting to clone Hawaii. All efforts to add additional sunshine to the state were subsequently dropped. In other news related to the weather wheel, legal proceedings have been instituted to remove the Surprise Me section from the wheel, given that Michiganders are no longer surprised by anything that descends from the heavens. This includes money, which they figure to be a trick of the automakers to get people to start buying cars again.

In an attempt to somewhat stabilize the weather in the state, efforts have been undertaken to ascertain the secret location of the weather wheel and the toddlers responsible for spinning it. Unfortunately, they are protected by those in the highest reaches of government, which is the real reason behind the mayor of Detroit's arrest last year. Michigan residents, angered by his refusal to disclose where they reside, took away his Lincoln Navigator and his Cadillac Escalade and sentenced him to life on the assembly line at Hyundai, where at last report he was attempting to unionize other workers.

Potential visitors to the state of Michigan are advised to plan accordingly for the weather, which is to say they should plan to travel elsewhere. That is, unless they can prove that they know where the weather wheel is kept, in which case they will receive the great honor of being made the next mayor.