Helping My Kids Pick a Billion-Dollar Bracket

It happens every year. The descent into madness.

March Madness.

I'm old, so I've been picking a bracket every year for a long, long time. I've never won anything, or done particularly well at it, but I enjoy making the picks. (I had a roommate when I was a Mormon missionary in 1986 who correctly predicted Louisville over Duke in the finals. Had he submitted it, he could have won a Ford Fiero sportscar. It would have been a big upgrade from the Plymouth Reliant we were driving at the time. I don't think the mission president would have approved.)

After I got married, I continued making picks, and I talked The Wife into filling out a bracket, too. So, of course, for the first four years of our marriage she cleaned my clock with her brackets. Every single year her picks were better than mine, and it usually wasn't even close.

When we started having kids, we thought it would be fun to have the kids pick a bracket, too. When Roni was old enough to know her letters, we would have her pick teams based on the first letter of the school name. This led to some crazy looking brackets.

As the years have gone by, I've been able to steer the kids towards making better picks. Maybe a little too good. I'm afraid both of their brackets will be better than mine this year.

How we do it is I will tell the kids the names of the two teams matching up for a game, and ask them who will win. A few years ago I figured out that the kids will usually pick the last team that I name. For instance, if I say "Albany or Florida?" they will almost always say "Florida." So, when I give them the names of the schools, I always say the name of the school with the higher-numbered seed first, so that the kids are more likely to choose the team that is favored to win.

(A quick aside: I have a hard time knowing what people mean when they say a "higher seed" and a "lower seed." In a 1-seed vs. 16-seed matchup, which do you call the higher seed? The 1-seed is the higher ranked team, but the 16-seed is the higher numbered team. When I hear someone say something like "I like it when the high seeds advance," I'm not sure if they mean they like it when the best teams advance, or if they want a lot of upsets. I guess I'm just easily confused.)

I say the kids usually pick the team that is favored, but not always. Sometimes they'll latch onto a team that has a "fun" name to say. Or maybe a team will remind them of something else. Two years ago Roni had Murray State going to the Final Four because it put her in mind of the character Murray from Sesame Street.

Needless to say, if there were a Little Mermaid University, or Iron Man State, my kids would pick them to win it all.

A billion-dollar bracket? Doubtful.

This year, Roni picked Oklahoma in the first round because, "Oklahoma is interesting." But, she has them losing to San Diego State in the second round because Diego is a friend of Dora the Explorer.

She also picked George Washington to make it to the Final Four because, and I quote, "George Washington was the prophet." (That's a bit of a Mormon thing. Mormons call the president of their church the "prophet," so Mormon kids sometimes get confused between presidents of the church and presidents of the country.)(Of course, based on the political leanings of most Mormons, there's not much chance of a Mormon kid calling President Obama the prophet.) (Although if Romney had won the election it might have been more confusing.)

She likes Villanova, mostly because she likes saying "Villanova." She also has VCU going all the way to the Elite Eight, possibly because she likes the alphabet. In the end, Roni picked Kansas to win it all this year in part because her cousin/best friend Cami used to live in Kansas.

Meanwhile, Buzz has a few more upsets in his bracket. He has St. Joseph's winning a couple of games because he loves his dad and his dad is named Joseph. "Wofford" is more fun to say than "Michigan," so that could be a big 15-over-2 upset to look for.

Buzz likes Stephen F. Austin to win a couple of games, though I'm not sure why because he is not familiar with either Stone Cold Steve Austin, the professional wrestler or Steve Austin, the Six-Million-Dollar Man.

Buzz picked "You-lee-ville" to win a couple of games. (Louisville.)

Buzz's best answer came when I asked him who would win between San Diego State and Arizona. His answer? "Sandazona State." I asked him three times, and he kept mumbling "Sandazona State." A word of warning to Buzz's future teachers: If you give him a true/false quiz, be prepared to get this as an answer:

True? False? Sure, whichever. 

Ultimately, Buzz likes Wichita State, and he has picked them to win it all. When I asked him why he kept picking Wichita State, he said it was because he thought they were a "nice witch."

Despite some of their outlandish picks, both Buzz and Roni have some respectable Final Four teams. Buzz has Wichita State, Florida, San Diego State and Iowa State. Roni has Kansas, Duke, Arizona, and president George Washington. (The Wife has Virginia winning with Duke, Kansas and Wisconsin filling out the Final Four. And me? Florida over Wichita State, with Michigan State and Wisconsin.)

Of course, this year there is some extra incentive to pick a perfect bracket. Multi-billionaire Warren Buffet and Quicken Loans are sponsoring a contest that will give a billion dollars if someone picks a perfect bracket.

A billion dollars!!! (That's $1,000,000,000!!!) Every time anyone fills out a bracket, there's always that hope, that dream, that maybe this time I'll get every pick right. Hey, it could happen. Not likely, but it could happen. Sure, the odds are about nine-billion to one, but it is possible. ("So, you're telling me there's a chance.")

My fear? That this is the year that I get a perfect bracket. Why would I fear this? Because when I went to enter my bracket into the billion-dollar contest, I was too late. They had already closed the contest. (Yet one more reason why they call me "Slow Joe.") It would be tragic if I lost out on a billion dollars because I didn't get my bracket entered in time.

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Okay, so I needn't have worried. The first game of the day was Dayton vs. Ohio State. I picked Ohio State. So, of course, Dayton won. And, with only five games in the books, my kids and The Wife all have losses as well. (The Wife correctly picked Harvard's upset of Cincinnati. Her mistake was sticking with her alma mater, BYU, over Oregon.)

Oh well, next year I'm sure that billion dollars will be ours! (Especially if the University of Cinderella or Hulk State wins it all.)

Are You As Smart As a Five Year Old?

I'm a fairly smart guy.

I got good grades in high school. I scored quite well on my college entrance exam. I have a college degree. I've never fallen for that "Nigerian prince" e-mail scam or believed that Bill Gates would send me money for liking a Facebook post.

I'm a fairly smart guy.

But, I'm not as smart as my wife.

So, it would figure that our kids would be smart, too. I long ago came to the conclusion that one day my kids would be smarter than me. I just didn't think it would happen so soon.

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Yesterday when we sat down for breakfast I learned one of the disadvantages of having a kindergartener who can read on a sixth grade level. We were having cereal, which is, of course, the favorite of the kids. (At times they have argued against french toast and/or waffles in favor of cold cereal!) We try to let them have cereal only a couple of times a week, and we try to keep them away from the super-sugary marshmellowy cereals. (No Lucky Charms or Froot Loops here!) (Maybe if the Loops were made with "Fruit" instead of "Froot" we'd let our kids eat them!)

They were eating Chocolate Cheerios. Roni had the box right in front of her. Suddenly, she says, "I want to have a good heart, so I should eat these every day." (It says on the box, "May Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease." The word "May" makes the whole claim seem a little questionable to me. I mean, what's to keep them from saying things like "May Help You Become a Better Quarterback," or "May Help You Be a Better Piano Player," or "May Reduce the Risk of Stubbing Your Toe.")

"May" reduce your chance of being called for jury duty.

Roni continued. "I eat these so I can have a good heart." She then tried to get her three-year old brother involved. The exchange went like this:

Roni: "Don't you want a good heart, Buzz?"
Buzz (not understanding what his sister was trying to get him to say): "No. I want Chocolate Cheerios."
Roni (to me): "I want a good heart."
Buzz: "No. I want Chocolate Cheerios!"
Roni: "I want a good heart."
Buzz: "I want Chocolate Cheerios."
Me (to Roni): "You have a good heart." (To Buzz): "And you have Chocolate Cheerios." (To both): "So, I think you are both doing okay."

And truthfully, she does have a good heart. (Although I'm not sure how much the Chocolate Cheerios have to do with it.)


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Later in the evening, I learned a lesson about using sarcasm with a sharp-witted five year old.

Roni was putting her fingers in her milk. Which, of course, is something she shouldn't be doing. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Get your fingers out of your milk! What kind of land do you live in where you think it's okay to put your fingers in your milk?"

Roni (takes fingers out of milk and thinks for a second): "Ummm… FingersInMilkLand. It's a long ways away. Nowhere near Belgium. Nowhere near Kansas. Actually, it's close to Hawaii. Have you ever been to Hawaii?"

Me: "No."

Roni: "Well, then, it's really close to Hawaii. And close to another place you would really love. It's right next to the Land of Cheese."

She knows my weaknesses. (Mmmm....cheese!) Her misdirection ploy worked, because I momentarily forgot about the fingers in the milk and was instead thinking of the Land of Cheese. (Mountains of Swiss with lots of caves to explore! And rivers of molten Velveeta!)

(On the plus side, Roni didn't put her fingers in her milk again.) (That I know of.)

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This morning I went and played basketball with some of the neighborhood guys. I wore an old "Star Trek the Next Generation" t-shirt that I got at my first "Star Trek" convention. (Yes, I've been to more than one "Star Trek" convention.) (Hasn't everyone?)

When I got home, Roni looked at my shirt and started to read it.

Can you believe it's been over 20 years since Star Trek: The Next Generation went off the air? Dang, I'm getting old!

She picked out two things to ask me about. 1) "Q's Visiting Again," and B) "Drinking with Guinan."

In trying to explain the character of "Q" I ended up using the word "mischievous," which I then had to define for her. I tried to keep my description of "Q" fairly vague, because I didn't want her fixating on him like she has recently with the characters from Star Wars. She's never seen any of the Star Wars movies, but a classmate told her about the movies so now she feels like she knows the characters. Just the other day she said had been "teaching Han Solo how to sing like Ariel." (Hmmm…Star Wars meets The Little Mermaid! They're both owned by Disney now, so as crazy as it sounds, it just might work!)

And as far as Guinan is concerned, I explained to Roni that she is a nice, friendly, smart person who wears really silly hats. So, if Roni compares you to Guinan, take it as a compliment. (But think about wearing a different hat next time.)

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So, am I smarter than a five year old? It depends on the five year old. 

Am I smarter than my five year old? It depends on the subject. 

But, by the time she's seven I won't stand a chance.

Joe Vs. The Toilet

My wife is inspirational.

On Thanksgiving she was doing some laundry and discovered that the washing machine was no longer agitating. The fact that the agitator was not agitating was aggravating and agitating to both The Wife and myself. The washer is more than ten years old, and we've had a repairman come to the house on two earlier occasions to replace a broken part in the agitator.

We discussed the situation and thought it might be time to get a new washing machine. It's old and not really worth another $125 for the repairman to come out and fix it again. This posed several problems:

1) If you get a brand new washing machine, you pretty much have to get a new dryer, too. Our current dryer still works. Not great, but it still works. But, it is also old, and you usually get a better deal when you buy them as a set.

That leads to, 2) A new washer and dryer cost money. Lots of money. We do not have a mason jar full of let's-get-a-new-washer-and-dryer cash buried in our back yard. (Unless the previous home owners left us some unknown hidden treasures.)

C) If we did get a new washer/dryer, that would mean going to the store to make that purchase. Did I mention this happened on Thanksgiving? That would mean we would have to go to the store on Black Friday to shop for the washer. I don't intend to go Black Friday shopping again any time soon. (See: Black Friday Shopping.) The thought of fighting those crowds was even less enticing than the thought of spending that much money.

That's when The Wife decided to think outside the box and do something I never would have thought to do. She decided to try to fix it herself! Her thinking was, "We have nothing to lose." Either she would fix it, and all would be well, or she would not fix it and we would have to buy a new washing machine, which is what we would have to do anyway if she didn't try.

So, she ripped apart the washer and found the part that was broken in the agitator. (I think it was between the widget arm and the flux capacitor.) She then looked it up on the interwebs and ordered a new part from Amazon.com. The cost? $4.

Certainly worth more than $4.

Thanks to Amazon Prime's* 2-day shipping, the part arrived on Monday. The Wife took the part downstairs and got the washing machine fixed up lickety-split! (Or is that "lickety-spit?") (And what does that even mean, anyway?)

[*No promotional considerations were given to me by Amazon Prime for this free plug. But I'd be willing to field offers.]

My wife is amazing! With just a little bit of gumption and effort she was able to save us hundreds of dollars! We once again have a working washing machine!

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A few weeks later, I had an argument with the toilet.

For a couple of months the toilet in our guest/kid's bathroom had been acting unruly. Sometimes it would hiss uncontrollably. Sometimes it would take two or three flushes to get everything down. Sometimes I would have to hold the handle down for five seconds to get it to flush. Sometimes jiggling the handle would make the hissing stop. Sometimes it wouldn't.

The problem was I could find no reasonable rhyme as to when or why it would do any of these things. There was no discernible pattern as to why those things were happening or how exactly I could make them stop.

That toilet was my nemesis.

My nemesis! (Don't let its calm demeanor fool you. This was a mean, nasty toilet!)

One day, while The Wife was at work and I was home with the kids, the toilet wouldn't stop hissing. I took the lid off to see if I could jiggle, jangle, or otherwise coerce a cease to the hiss. I was seriously thinking about getting The Wife a new toilet for Christmas. (Nothing says "love" like a new toilet!)

That's when  I saw that the floaty ball was full of water. Now, I'm not a plumber (despite what you might think from that gap between the top of my pants and the bottom of my shirt), and I'm about as far from being "Mr. Fix-It" as you can get (See: Joe Fix-It Strikes Out), but even I know that the toilet floaty ball is not supposed to be full of water!

It was then that I used my wife as inspiration: Instead of buying a whole new toilet, maybe I could actually fix the darn thing! And if I couldn't? Well, I guess I could use the money (that we didn't have) that we saved from not buying a new washing machine to buy a new toilet. I had nothing to lose.

So, I went to a strange, foreign place: the hardware store. Unfortunately, they didn't sell just the floaty ball, so I had to buy an entire set of toilet innards. And then it was time to try to actually fix the toilet.

It ended up being much easier than I thought. The hardest part turned out to be extricating the floaty ball from the plastic packaging in which the toilet innards had been encased. I got the floaty ball in place, and it actually floated! No more hissing! No more jiggling! No more jangling! (Although I'll still jangle every once in a while, just for the fun of it.)  Sure, it was three times more expensive than The Wife's fix ($12 for toilet innards compared to $4 for agitator parts), but it was certainly worth it!

Lesson learned? If something is broken down and not working right, instead of throwing it out and buying a new one, maybe you should try to fix it. You've got nothing to lose!

(Hmm...I wonder if this approach would work for Congress?)

You Say You Want a Resolution

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Yes, it's that time. It's time to look at things with a fresh set of bleary eyes. It's time to shake things up and start anew. It's time to start using words like "anew" more often.

It's time for some New Year's resolutions. Here we go:

*I will be more happy this year.

*I will get caught singing in my car when stopped at intersections. And when I do, I will KEEP SINGING!

*I will actually sell something I write for money.

*I will do something to make my wife smile every day.

*I will eat more vegetables.

*I will read at least two books every month.

*I will make my kids laugh. Often.

*I will do a better job of showing my appreciation to my family and friends for all they do for me.

*I will not eat anything out of the vending machines at work for the entire year of 2014.

Has anyone ever made a resolution to eat MORE vending machine food? (I don't think so.)

*At some point this year the first number of my weight will not be a "2." (That means either gaining 80 pounds or losing 20.) (I'm not sure which would be easier.)

*I will be more fun and less fungible.

*I will eat cheese. (I like cheese.)

*I will increase my everyday vocabulary. But, not to the point that I sound pretentious, just enough to occasionally confuse people and make them want to look up words in the dictionary. (Admit it, you're still wondering what "fungible" means, aren't you? I'll admit, I didn't know. I was going to say I would be more fungible this year until I looked the word up and found out the actual meaning.)

*I will climb every two mountains. One of them will be Oxford Peak in Idaho. (I'm serious about this, Andy!)

*I will never get more than three days behind in my journal. (My wife will like this. She gets tired of me trying to get caught up on my journal and asking things like, "Hey, what did we do a week ago on Tuesday?")

*I will get a new job. (I'm 47 years old. It's time I got a career instead of just having a job.)

*I will play more with my kids.

*I will be more confident and less afraid.

*I will write a song.

*I will change the sheets more often.

*I will appreciate my kids more. (People are always saying, "Appreciate your kids while they are this little. Time goes by too fast." So, I will do that.) (Maybe I will work on some sort of time machine to make these "good" years go by slower.)

*I will be nicer. (It's nice to be nice to the nice. And it's even nicer to be nice to the not so nice. It confuses them.)

*I will cook more.

*I will try a new recipe each month. (Cheese and/or bacon will most likely be prominently involved.)

*I will shave at least once a week, whether I need to or not.

*I will do new things.

*I will try new things. (To misquote Yoda, "Do or do not? I can always try.")

*I will clean the car.

*I will write a book. (I might not be finished by the end of the year, but I will at least be halfway through.)

*I will not gripe about the little things so much.

*I will work in the yard more.

*I will not use cuss words. Or curse words. Or swear words. (Dagnabbit, I'm serious about this!)

*I will exercise at least three times a week.

*I will take out my wife on more dates. (Sometimes even without the kids!) (And no, Walmart doesn't count.)

*I will be myself more. (I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I'm going to find out.)

"Your Nose Is Not a Toybox" (And Other Things I Can't Believe I've Actually Said)

Sometimes I'm surprised by the words that come out of my mouth. The other day, while dealing with my three year-old in the bathroom, I actually said:

"Hold still! No one wants to wipe a moving bum!"

As soon as I said it I knew it was absurd. "No one wants to wipe a moving bum." Not only is it a rare sentence (I doubt anyone has ever uttered those words in that particular order before), but it's probably a  pretty accurate sentence, too. (Although, after some of the things I saw in my Abnormal Psychology class, I can only say that with certainty about 99.99999% of the general population.)

It got me thinking about some of the things I've said that I never thought I would have ever verbalized. As a dad, I've found myself saying a lot of odd things. Things like:

"Don't sit on your brother...even though he likes it."

"The socks go on first. And then the shoes."

"Come here. Let me sniff your bum."

"Do I look like Beaker to you?" (A word of explanation. When Roni would start to get bossy, usually with her little brother, we had to explain to her that she was not actually in charge of everyone. We then told her that the one person she could boss around was her stuffed figure of Beaker from The Muppet Show. Occasionally we have to remind her that none of the rest of us are, in fact, Beaker.)

Poor Beaker! Always getting picked on. (And no, I don't look like him.) (My nose isn't orange enough.)

"Don't lick the pool water." Actually, this is something that The Wife said to one of our kids, and she  thought it was funny. It brings up a whole category of "things I can't believe I've said." The "don't lick/eat that" category. Such as when my sister-in-law had to tell her daughter:

"Don't lick the cat."

As the parent of a five year-old, I've been asked to teach the four and five year-old class at church. This has exposed me to saying many, many more absurd things along these lines. As examples:

"Don't lick your shoe."

"Don't lick your chair."

"Don't eat your shoelaces." (Instances like this make me thankful for Velcro.)

"We are not having crayons for lunch."

"Being reverent means keeping your tongue in your mouth."

"We don't eat paper."

"That note is for you to give your parents, not for you to eat."

And:

"Please wait until after class before you eat your coloring page."

It's not just one kid, but several of the children who have the problem of trying to eat (or lick) things in class. Thankfully, my daughter isn't one of them. Instead I get to say to her things like:

"Miss Piggy will protect you from the monsters." (I told her this at three in the morning when she woke up screaming for me because she had a bad dream.)

And:

"You can't have any more broccoli until you finish your chicken nuggets." (Roni likes her some veggies!)

And then, finally, there's this that I told my son a while back:

"Get a tissue. That booger is not a toy! And your nose is not a toybox!" (I knew a couple of guys in college to whom I should have said this.)


And now, it's your turn. If any of you, my dear readers (all seven of you) can think of absurd things you can't believe you actually said, please leave them here in the comments section, or on Facebook at the link for this story. I'm interested to hear what you have to say. Thanks!

Ode To My Flip Phone

So futuristic.

So obsolete.

It started back in the early 1970s, when I would come home from school and watch episodes of Star Trek. (Yes, I know Star Trek aired in the 1960s. But, I was only two months old when the first episode aired in 1966, so my first memories of the show are from the syndicated reruns.) I was a Spock guy. Probably because I thought I was smart and logical. Besides, I was too afraid of girls to ever think of myself as Captain Kirk. (Now that I'm older and grumpier I find myself identifying more and more with "Bones" McCoy. I'm getting increasingly curmudgeonly.)

At the time our best way of communicating with the world outside our house was via the telephone that was permanently mounted on our wall. The base box was connected to the receiver by a ten-foot long pigtail cord. And, it wasn't even ours. The phone was owned by the telephone company. And it wasn't private. We had a party line. That meant we shared the phone line with the neighbors down the street. If they were using the phone, we couldn't. 

An old-style, wall-mounted rotary phone, with cord.
(Heaven forbid we ever had to call anyone from Downey with their "897" prefix.)

So, when I watched Star Trek and saw them carrying around a communicator, I was fascinated. It was so futuristic. Here was a tiny box, less than one-tenth the size of our wall-mounted box, that a person could carry around on their belt or their pocket. (No cord!) And, each person had one of their own! It wasn't shared with anyone else in the house, the neighbors, or, in the case of Star Trek, anyone else on the spaceship. 

Star Trek communicator, open and closed. (Ooo, buttons and lights!)

One of the best features of the Star Trek communicator was that with a flick of the wrist the cover would open up to reveal its innards of button and blinking lights. (Futuristic devices can never have too many blinking lights!)

As kids we used to pretend we had our own communicators. We'd use boxes, rocks, dirt clods, or our imagination, but whatever we were using as our communicator, we would flick our wrists in that special "Star Trek communicator" way to flip open the lid on our pretend device. Then we would twist an imaginary knob and talk into it.

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I was a bit late to the game in getting my first cell phone. I didn't get one until 2002. At the time I had a job where I was delivering ice cream to convenience stores, and I got tired of having to carry around quarters to use pay phones whenever I needed to call in to the office. That first cell phone was pretty big and bulky, and I didn't use it very often.

It wasn't until 2006 that I got my first "flip" phone. The Wife and I had just gotten engaged, and I needed something a bit more reliable that I could use more often than my old phone.

I was very excited to get a "flip" phone. But, I was immediately disappointed when my "flip" phone wouldn't flip open when I did my old "Star Trek communicator" wrist flick. The tension of the spring on the cover was too tight to open with a simple wrist flick. I would have to pry the phone open at least half way before I could effectively wrist flick it the rest of the way. That didn't stop me from trying, though. I would wrist flick that thing open (with the help of a prying thumb) every chance I could.

A few years into our marriage, we upgraded our phones. I still had a flip phone, but now it was advanced enough that I could actually take, send and receive pictures on it! (Try doing that on your fancy communicator, Dr. McCoy!) [Doctor McCoy's response: "I'm a doctor, not a photographer!"]

I had the perfect communicating tool, right there in my pocket!

And then, I left it in my pocket and put it through the washing machine. (Oops.)

That phone died in the washing machine that day. Unfortunately, we were locked into a calling plan, so I was unable to get me a new phone to replace it. (You gotta love those calling plans!) (Or not.) I ended up getting a makeshift replacement phone. It could handle phone calls just fine, but I couldn't send or receive pictures on it.

Yes, my flip phone may be obsolete, but at least my calculator watch is still cool!

Meanwhile, as I was plugging along with my makeshift replacement phone, my "futuristic" flip phones were getting replaced by "smart" phones. Apparently, a group of non-Star Trek fans decided that it was better if the phone screen was in front of you all the time, without having to "flip" a lid open to reveal it. The longer I held on to my "flip" phone, the more out of date and obsolete my phone and I were. (And the more I enjoyed those commercials with Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader, where someone tries to steal his phone and he welcomes it. Here's a link: Take my phone.) (I laugh as hard at that commercial as The Wife laughs at the one where the farmer spells cow "C-O-W-E-I-E-I-O.")

Finally, last week, my old, obsolete, makeshift replacement phone died. And so, I've now joined the zombie horde of iPhone owners. It will take some getting used to. At this point my new "smart" phone is much smarter than I am. I still really don't know what an "app" is. And, while it will certainly be nice to take and receive pictures, and surf the interwebs on my phone, I'm still going to miss my old flip phone.

So, if you ever see me strangely flicking my wrist as I answer my phone, don't think I'm too weird. I'm just fondly remembering a time from my past when that was a futuristic gesture.

"Are You Pregnant?" (And 4 Other Questions You Should NEVER Ask)

I was at work the other day, exchanging pleasantries with a casual acquaintance/co-worker, when out of the blue she says, "So, are you having any more kids yet?"

My immediate reaction was, "That's none of your dadgum business!" But, instead I gave her about as vague of an answer as I could, "Well, I don't know."

Undaunted, she pressed the issue. "How old are your kids now?" "Five and three." "Well, you definitely need to get some more! You don't want there to be too big of a gap! You're not getting any younger! You gotta get going on that!"

I hem-hawed another general response, "Well, you never know," then looked for any excuse I could find to remove myself from the conversation, something along the lines of, "Sorry, I've got to go check and see if my shoelaces are the same length. I'll talk to you later."

This incident got me thinking about some of the questions that you just shouldn't ask people. So, I thought I'd gather up some of those questions and show why they should remain unasked.

Question: When are you going to have kids? (Or, if you already have kids, change that to: When are you going to have more kids?)
This question has been asked to almost every newly married couple, almost every engaged couple, and a large number of couples who have been on more than three dates. The answer, of course, is: "None of your dadgum business!" (If you want to replace "dadgum" with something a little stronger, please feel free to do so.)

When or if couples decide to have children is a private decision. So is how many children they have. There may be personal, economical, physical, or other factors that effect those decisions that you might not be aware of.

For example, some friends of mine moved to a different state and were promptly excoriated by their new church leader for being "selfish" and "putting their careers above family" because they had been married for over five years and didn't have any kids yet. Aside from this being absolutely none of his "dadgum" business, this idiot knew nothing about the miscarriage or the visits to the fertility clinic. (This guy was a special kind of stupid.)

(While we're here, the number of children a family has is a personal, private matter, too. You may think you are being funny or helpful, but no one wants to hear "Are you trying to repopulate the earth by yourself?" or "Are you trying for your own baseball team?" or "helpful" tips about birth control. Again: none of your business!)

Exception (When this question might be asked.): Immediate family and close friends might ask this question in a quiet, private setting, but even then it is iffy. It's probably best not to ask unless they bring the subject up.

Pregnant? Don't ask.

Question: Are you pregnant?
It's pretty simple: you should never ask this question unless you are 100% sure the answer is "Yes." And, if you are 100% sure the answer is "Yes," there is no need to ask the question, is there?

Just because someone has put on a few pounds or is a little rounder in the belly, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are pregnant. They might have eaten three pieces of pie too many, or have clothes that fit oddly.

Generally speaking, if a woman wants you to know if she is pregnant, she will let you know. Leave it at that.

Exception: If your wife just went into the restroom with a pregnancy test.


Question: Are we there yet?
This one is very easy. If you are traveling somewhere in some sort of vehicle, be it car, airplane, bus, boat, train or whatever, and the vehicle is still in motion, chances are you are not there yet.

Exception: If you wake up in a vehicle that is no longer in motion.


Question: Does this make me look fat?
If you ask this question, I have a few questions for you. Do you really want to know the truth? Are you sure you want to put the person to whom you are asking this question in a position where they might have to decide whether to hurt your feelings or tell you a lie?

Or, more simply, have you heard of a mirror? And, do you know how to use one?

Exception: If you are trying to dress up as Santa Claus.


Question: Don't you know who I am?
Oh, so you are famous. Or you are important. Or you think you are famous and/or important.

Well, guess what? If you find yourself in a situation where you are indignantly asking "Don't you know who I am?" chances are you are not as famous and/or important as you think you are. (This question is often posed by celebrities or sports stars when they get pulled over for drunk driving.)

(And, by the way, even if I do know who you are it doesn't mean you are entitled to special treatment or anything. You might just have to slum it with the rest of us schlubs.)

Exception: If you are talking to someone who has amnesia.


And, finally:
Question: When will the Vikings finally win a Super Bowl?
Oops.  That question belongs in the "Questions That Might Never Be Answered" column, not the "Questions That Should Never Be Asked" column. Sorry about that.