I suppose men can be idiotic, too...

So I've been guilty of perpetuating the myth that women think their husbands are stupid. I admit that I can be a little defensive about that. Sometimes, I hate to admit that we do stupid things without thinking about them, sometimes with humorous results.

A few years ago, they had this commercial for some product that I can't remember, which is never a good sign of a memorable ad if the potential customers can never remember what the original ad was. This ad showed a young-ish suit-and-tie guy walking down a sidewalk when he happens upon some kids playing on a slip and slide on their front lawn. For the uninitiated, a Slip N Slide is a long slick track that you hook a hose up to. The kids then take turns running, diving and sliding on the Slip and Slide. The water makes you fly really fast. In the commercial, the suit-and-tie guy pauses, then takes off his jacket, throws down his briefcase, runs and slides on the Slip and Slide with the kids! It looks really fun, but the screen disclaimer is a real downer, "Warning. Do not attempt. Serious injury may result."



This is true. Serious injury can and often does result from men trying to feel young by doing activities they really shouldn't be doing. We often forget we're mortal. Kids don't have that fear, which is they why do they a lot of stupid things. Kids also don't break as easily as adults. This is where men get into trouble.

My neighbor down the street found this out first hand when trying out a Slip and Slide he had set up for his 4-year-old son (at the time). My neighbor's back yard is sloped down towards this house and he set up the Slip N Slide that way on the slope. He decided that he was going to try the Slip N Slide himself. He went to the top of this yard, took a running start, slid on the Slip N Slide, shot past the end of it, flew over jagged rocks and hit the backside of his house. While he was cut, bleeding and injured, his wife thought this was funny as hell and laughed and laughed.

This brings me to another point. Wives not only think we're stupid, which we can be sometimes, they also love to laugh at our pain.

When my wife and I were dating, my roommates and I had a garage sale in our little townhouse garage. I had placed a cardboard garage sale sign by the entrance of our resident complex. When the sale was over, I drove Laura over to the entrance, got out of the car and went over to get the sign, which was taped underneath a Stop sign. I picked up the sign and walked forward, right into the side of the Stop sign.

All Laura could hear was a "wongongongong!". She looked up to see me holding my head and staggering around. She didn't stop to see if I was okay. She was too busy laughing her ass off at me. She laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Every time she looked at me and the large welt on my face, she laughed again.

She said, "That was the funniest thing I've ever seen!" while wiping away tears of happiness.

Another time, it was winter and we were walking to my car to return some wedding gifts that we had duplicates of. I had three boxes in my arms when I took a step off the curb and promptly slid and fell on my ass. I gasped in pain. Then I gasped some more as I suddenly couldn’t take a breath.

I gasped, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”

Laura was concerned, for a minute. When I finally caught my breath and was clearly okay save for a bruise to my ribs, she started laughing and laughing. Nevermind that I might have cracked a rib or hit my head on the pavement, it was just funny to her that I fell down like Charlie Chaplin.

It wasn’t the last time I hurt myself in a stupid way. There was the time I cut my middle finger while trimming my hedges. Normally, one would probably uses goggles and gloves when trimming his hedges with an electric hedge trimmer, but not me. It didn’t occur to me that something bad might happen so I thought nothing of not using gloves.

I was in the two-foot gap between my hedges and my neighbor’s fence trimming the overgrown back part of the hedges. I was waving the hedge trimmer in a sweeping motion downward to get the higher branches cut on the hedges. I swept down with my right hand and pulled the branches away with my left. I was at it for a while when I nicked the extension cord and almost cut through it. I thought to myself to be careful not to cut the cord. Not a minute later, I swept down with my right hand while pulling branches with my left hand when “BUZZT!”, a loud sound erupted from the hedge trimmer. I dropped the still running hedge trimmer and looked down at my hand. I had cut my index finger. I had cut it deep and blood started to gush out of it. I grabbed my hand and ran towards the house.

I ran inside and said frantically, “Take me to the hospital!”

Laura kind of looked at me skeptically. I knew she was thinking that I was trying to fool her.

“I’M NOT KIDDING!” I yelled.

She jumped up and took me to the hospital. Laura would laugh later because she couldn’t picture how I managed to cut my finger. She still can’t. Laura would look over at me holding my hand it in the air with my massive splint on the middle finger and start chuckling. Or she’d say something like, “Hey, stop flipping me off!”

Not that it was the first time I’ve hurt myself.

In college I managed to fracture my left index finger while playing a dangerous game of basketball. We were just starting a game when I had the ball passed to me. It wasn’t a hard throw, but I had looked away at the last second to see who was open when I felt a huge pain surge up my arm. In the process of catching the ball, I had moved my hand slightly and the ball collided with my finger. I managed to catch the ball and I called timeout for an injury. The next day, I couldn’t even bend the finger without pain shooting up my hand. A visit to the doctor later and I was fitted with a splint for a fractured finger.

Not that my friends were sympathetic. If I had my hand on the table during dinner at the dorm lunchroom, there were all sorts of jokes like, “Hey, Bob where is the salt?” I’d look down to see my finger pointing in the direction of the salt. “Oh there it is! Thanks!” The joke was always where is the pop, plate, floor, someone else and them saying, “Oh there it/he is!” Ha Ha. So funny.

Whether we’re trying to have fun or just trying to fix something around the house, men are bound to get hurt.

At my last job, we had a really nice grass courtyard right next to our office. While some of our employees used their break time to smoke a cigarette, our group used it to have recess. We would play touch football, soccer and rugby for an hour everyday. It was fun, but not without its dangers.

One guy started limping and re-aggravated his hamstring injury from high school. He was encouraged by his wife to stop playing football with us to give his leg a chance to heal. He kept playing with us, but his leg got worse. His wife demanded that he stop playing football. He again kept playing with us. Finally, his leg was so bad that he had to see a doctor, who told him that his hamstring had torn and it required surgery. After the surgery and he recovered, he continued to play against his wife’s wishes.

The stupidity didn’t stop there.

Another co-worker, Jim, ended up sidelined for over a week after a spirited game of touch football caused a hernia to flare up, which then required surgery, which laid him up from football and work for a week. Because it was on company time, he got off a week of work and we almost got banned from using the courtyard.

Yet another co-worker, Chris almost got impaled during a spirited football game. Let me explain. He was running a pass route when he blindly, that is he wasn’t looking forward, encountered one the small trees in the courtyard. This wasn’t really new for Chris as he had collided with several trees in the courtyard during some of the games. This time, he ran headlong into one of the support poles for the small tree, which instantly snapped in half, with the remaining half in the ground now a lower sharp point. Chris managed to stop himself with a light skin abrasion. That would have been good. I think we would have gotten banned for good had that happened.

Even I was almost banned by Laura from recess after completely ripping two pairs of jeans. Each time, all I was doing was throwing a football. Each time, I threw the ball and I heard a “RRIIIIPPPP!!” I looked down and noticed that I was completely hanging out in the crotch area because the fabric had ripped all through the upper leg area. I finished work with a nice breeze. Two week later with a different pair of jeans, the same thing happened again. I made the mistake of telling Laura that a co-worker had been forbade by his wife to play, but he played anyway. She said that she should do the same thing to me. I then shut my mouth.

We even had a newer employee start playing with us. He had no hands. Where hands should be were nubs. How did he lose his hands? Making a pipe bomb of course! The pipe bomb did not go off like it should have so he walked over to it and picked it up when... well... I think you can see where this is going.

Now that I think about it. It's probably justified that she sometimes treats me like an idiot. After all, we tend to do idiotic things on occasion. As she says, "I never know with you..."

Proof wives think husbands are stupid - Exhibit B and I'm right and wrong at the same time...

Friday, I had a personal day off from work, so we spent the day in Omaha. We were on our way to my wife's work at the World Herald down by the Qwest Center. We were driving into that part of town when I noticed that there were a lot of construction signs and cones. Plus, the street was graded so it was bumpy.

My wife calls from the backseat, where she was sitting with Julia, "Be careful driving my car. There's a lot of construction around here."

We were at a stop light. I turned my head towards her and gave her a hollow stare as if to say, "I'm not a freaking idiot."

I turn back around and say, "Oh, is that why there are all of those construction cones all over the place? Although, the graded street kind of gave me the hint to take it slow."

She ignored me because I'd already been a smartass earlier in the day.

I subscribe to Netflix, the DVD mail rental service. When you get one in the mail, you watch it, put it back in the envelope and send it back in the mail to get another one. I was riding around all morning with Laura and her brother and looking for a post office or a mailbox.

Suddenly, I see a mailman start to get out of his truck. This was a perfect opportunity to drop off my mail so I call from the backseat, "Hey, stop the car so I can give this mail to the mailman."

No response.

I quickly call, "Hey stop the car!"

Still no response and we're quickly starting to move past the mailman parked in his truck.

"Stop the car!"

Not stopping...

"STOP!!"

Still not stopping...

"STOPPPPPPP!!!!!" I practically scream.

Laura slams on the brakes.

"What?" she demanded.

"I want to drop off my mail to that mailman."

I jump out of the car and hand my mail to the guy, who says thanks when I hand him my mail.

I get back in the car and say, "I asked you to stop five times! Didn't you hear me?"

Laura's response, "I'm so not having this conversation with you right now."

"Hey, you were the one ignoring me. I had to yell for you to hear me."

"I'm not talking about this!" she said quickly.

I dropped it until we dropped off her brother. Then I naturally brought it up again.

"Can you see why I got upset. You weren't even listening to me."

Her response, "I'm not going to talk about this."

My friends at work said that this means that she knows that she's wrong and doesn't want to talk about it. Regardless on who was wrong or right (me), it just doesn't make sense.

If someone was trying to save your life by yelling "Duck!", would you ignore it until that someone is frantically screaming for you to duck? By that time, you'd already be dead. Laura didn't like that analogy either. I guess I should drop it.

Saw Green Day at the Qwest Center on Sunday Night...

Bill and I went to the Green Day concert in Omaha Sunday night. This was the concert in which I royally pissed off my brother, Joe, though a set of circumstances that was entirely my fault I must admit.



Bill and I decided that we want to go to the concert way back in February. Bill decided that he wanted to go, so I bought tickets online for both of us. About a week later, he called back and asked when the concert was again. I told him April 1st, which was a Friday night. He called me back and broke the news to me that he couldn't make it on that night because he had to work. I was pretty pissed. Here I had shelled out the money for the concert and he couldn't even go! In vain, I asked some people at work if they wanted to go, but I had no luck convincing people to go with me. It was then that I asked Joe if he wanted to go. He didn't, but one of his sons might. Sure enough, Derek, the older one, said that he'd like to go. So it was set... until I realized that the concert wasn't on April 1st, but rather May 15th. I noticed it while looking up more ticket information. I think I had ingrained April 1st in my head because that was the day John Mellencamp was to play Omaha and I had asked Laura if she was interested since she likes John Mellencamp.

I then assumed that the original plan was on, but Joe assumed otherwise. He didn't like my switching of plans one bit and was even less enthusiastic about my plan to buy Derek a ticket and then have him sit by himself on the other side of the Qwest center. I mean, what's the big deal?! So we leave a minor to sit by himself amongst strangers. Bill decided to opt out since he didn't want to cause trouble, but Derek decided that he really didn't want to go, so we were back on.

We finally made it to the concert. Bill and I found our baby sitters and we were off. We decided to meet at Nebraska Furniture Mart because he had to pay a bill. This was a good choice because it gave me something to do while Bill went to the bathroom, all three times to be exact. He claimed that he had stomach troubles since flying back from California, but this seems to be par for the course for him. He's always going to the can!

We drove to Walgreens and bought Pepto Bismal for him. We then headed to King Kong burger. We ate and he hit the bathroom again. At the Qwest center alone, he hit the bathroom twice before the show, at least three times during and once before leaving. I'm sure he'll dispute this since he claims I stretch the truth, but it's true. Dude likes going to the bathroom... a lot...

Interesting thing about the concert coming in. The security guards confiscated every single studded wristband or studded leather belt, which I found odd since I'm sure there are plenty of other things one could use as a weapon if needed, my shoes for instance. Also, on the tickets, it only said no audio or video devices. If they didn't want punk rock kids to wear studded apparel, they should have put on the tickets, "No studded belts, chains, wrist bands or any other studded atire. We at the Qwest Center are very paranoid." They were so paranoid that when buying a gatorade, they emptied the bottle into a cup for me and wouldn't let me keep the bottle. They did that for the bottled water and cans of beer the dispensed. Weird.

It was a pretty mixed concert all the way around. Half of the crowd were the new teeny boppers that were at their first concert (or so they claimed when half of the crowd cheered when asked by opener My Chemical Romance's lead singer to cheer if they were at their first concert ever). The other half, of course, was a mixed bag of people in their 20s and 30s.

My Chemical Romance did their best to be rousing, but the horrible Quest Center audio dynamics totally drowned out the vocals to an echo-like mess.



The lead singer of MCR reminded all of the girls that if they're at any other concert and roadies tell them that they'll get a backstage pass if they show their tits, "YOU TELL THOSE STUPID MOTHER F***ERS TO F*** OFFFFFFF!!"

Anyway, Green Day hit the stage with command and did some rousing versions of the first several songs of American Idiot (skipping Blvd. of Broken Dreams for the encore) and stopping at the song where St. Jimmy arrives.

This is where it went down hill. They started messing around with way too many audience participation songs with lots of commands for people to yell "Hey!" and "Ho!" at the beginnings, middle and end. I didn't think it was possible to stretch 3 songs that were about 3 minutes apiece into 30 minutes, but I was wrong as "Hitchin' a Ride" seemed to take forever, likewise for "King for a Day". They did a rousing version of the Animal House version of "Shout" but of course extended that. Then came an audience pariticipation song where they pulled 3 kids from the crowd to play drums, bass and guitar. They did pull it off, but it took 10 minutes to get it going.

Songs of note were pretty good versions of "Longview", "She" and "Minority"

The general lack of more songs from American Idiot was disappointing and the audience participation attempts got really old. As I muttered to my brother, "Just sing some f***ing songs already!"

I admit they were really good, but the song participation stuff just got really annoying, but then again, I wasn't feeling the hotest since when I got home I found that I had a 100 degree temperature. Also, being that I'm getting old, my developing hernia near my groinal area started to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch during the concert. It's been hurting a lot lately whenever I do something like mow the lawn, rake, or use a shovel, which is quite often lately, so it gets aggravated easily. I felt like shouting to the kids, "Enjoy your health while you can! This will be you someday!" I don't think I'd have gotten any sympathy.

During the concert, it was amusing to see the younger crowd try to show how wild they were. We had three teenage girls in front of us and they took turns thrashing their hair this way and that, slapping hands and filming 30 second clips onto their phones and emailing them away. I found that last part kind of sad and amusing considering that we were near the back of the arena, which means that the sound would suck and it would like ants were on stage. I can see her bragging to her friend, "Check it out! There's Billy Joe! Dude totally looks hot if you could actually see what that black spec on stage is, but I swear it's him!"

Not that the older crowd was any less annoying. The beer drinkers were very uptight and irate about the lack of speed at the service counters. One long-haired guy yelled to a helper behind the counter to open another register. When the guy said that he couldn't, the guy laughed and then yelled, "F*** you! You're useless! Get out of here!" That'll get you good service. Just piss off the staff why don't you? When I was in that position at my book buying gig, all I had to do was threaten to send them to the back of the line if they didn't stop complaining about the prices I was giving them and that shut them up pretty damned quick.

Leaving the show, we encountered a lot of groups of girls that were being escorted by a lone adult that was either 5 yards behind them or 10 yards ahead of them. I'm sure that'll be me someday, but Julia's going to hate my ass whenever I take her to these concerts. I can't decide if I want to wear the Bikini Inspector hat or just tag along and gab until she gets sick of it and tells me how lame I am. Her friends will probably tell her that I'm a cool Dad that at least likes modern music, but she'll say, "My Dad is such a jerk!"

I have a future with the geriatric set...

I read the previous story about my Grandma Jordan at her funeral on Monday. To my surprise, it went over way better than I thought it was going to. Although it was a sad occassion, I was glad to bring some laughter into the situation. I was surprised by the places people laughed the hardest at, like when I mentioned that Grandma told us the cow's tongue she served us for dinner was roast beef. I had to pause because the rush of laughter engulfed me.

After the funeral, I received many compliments from older people that they really enjoyed my story about Grandma.

Laura commented, "Wow. You really have a future with making the geriatric set laugh."

"Hey, they're going to be a rather large contingent of people in the coming years."

"Yeah, but you hate the Baby Boomers," she said.

"I know, but it's not like I'll do a reading like this: 'I hope you all die you spoiled boomers! Now who wants to hear some nostalgia comedy?'"

Grandma almost gets us the cooties...

Grandma Jordan wasn't exactly a character. She was probably pretty normal, but to a kid, she was a character.

When I was younger, I just assumed that Grandma Jordan was 100 years old. That's how old I thought old people were. 100 years old seemed very old compared to single digits. They were old, so I assumed that they must have been 100 years old. Made sense, right?

When I was a kid at home, Grandma came to visit us from time to time. Sometimes, she watched us while my parents were away. Each time she came to visit, I was always struck by one thing, how Grandma Jordan answered the telephone.

The phone would ring. Grandma Jordan would answer it like she was singing an opening opera note, "Helllloooooo!" she would sing. It was never a question with grandma. I guess she was just happy to talk to whomever was on the phone.

Grandma watched us kids while my Mom and Dad were away one time when I was just 2 or 3. Back then, Bill and I loved the song "Winnie the Pooh." You know the song, "Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh. Cuddly little cubby all stuffed with fluff, etc..." We'd sit there mesmerized listening to the song over and over. We play it on our tape recorder, rewind it and play it again. This would repeat over and over. Finally, Grandma took the tape player away and hid it.

Mom came home from where ever she was and noticed that the tape player wasn't out. She asked where it was and Grandma pointed up high, "It's up there! Drove me nuts that song!"

From time to time, Grandma Jordan would watch us kids while my Mom and Dad went out of town for one of my Dad's conventions or to visit friends in another state. Generally, we didn't go, which I can understand now that I have a kid. I can't imagine it would be very relaxing to go on vacation with 5 kids in tow. If our vacation to Worlds of Fun was any example, not very fun at all. During that trip, it seemed that our Dad was centered in front of the video arcade so that Bill and I couldn't go and spend money there. The one time we went tried to go in, he was there to yell at us for trying.

Having Grandma Jordan was not the coolest person to have watch us kids. For one thing, we had HBO, which Grandma did not have, so she was not used to seeing unedited movies on the TV. For another thing, she wasn't used to seeing young kids watching movies they'd probably get away with watching while our parents were home. She'd sit with us while a movie was on and usually after the first curse word was flung or someone got blown away on screen, the standard question would roll out, "Are you sure you're supposed to be watching this?" Other times, it was a statement/demand, "I'm not so sure you should be watching this." No matter how many times we'd assure her that we were allowed to watch stuff like the Omen or Halloween, she didn't buy it.

Occassionally, she'd get one over on us kids. She once served us cow's tongue from our freezer, which was one of the few cuts left over from our side of beef. I tasted it and it tasted kind of livery, but she assured us it was roast beef. It wasn't and it was only after my parents got back that the horrifying news came out when my Mom tried to serve another one. "Your Grandma Jordan served this to you the last time she was here and she said you kids ate it up," my Mom assured us shocked kids.

When I was in the 3rd grade, Grandma Jordan was again watching us. This is probably the memory of her that stands for me...


Grandma had just gotten off the phone.

"Boys! I've got some great news! You've been invited to a birthday party this Saturday!"

"Cool!" we both said. "Whose birthday is it?"

She stopped suddenly and put her hand to her head.

"You know," she paused. "I don't quite remember. Uhh... Oooo... I had it on the tip of my tongue. "

We stood there is disbelief. Here we were, being invited to a party and she can't even remember the name. Parties meant cake, ice cream and fun and we were dangerously close to losing out on that fun.

"I think the name starts with a K and ends with a C," she finally said. "I know it! Tell me some of your friends names and I'm sure I'll remember it."

We thought and thought. We didn't really know that many kids with names that started with K.

"Kevin?"

"No, that's not it."

"Well, the only kid I can think of with that name is Kim C," I said.

"Kim C!" she exclaimed. "That's it! Oh thank goodness!"

We didn't think it was that great. Kim, after all, was a girl and we hadn't hung out with a girl in a while. Girls were creatures that you hung out with before you get to kindergarten and they highlight your differences in school. That and the peer pressure of staying away from girls coupled with my fear of talking to them made this a huge dilemma. Go and be humiliated if anyone ever found out or not go and lose out on some choice birthday treats. Of course, we opted to go through some prodding from Grandma.

"I don't want to go to a girl's party," one of us protested.

"Oh, come now! It'll be fun" Grandma Jordan assured us.

"We don't even know what to get a girl!" we protested.

Grandma would hear none of it. She took us to Kaybee Toys in the mall and helped us with our selection. Nothing would have been good enough for a girl, but Grandma insisted that we buy something. In the end, she "helped" us pick out a Raggedy Ann and Andy Colorforms set (the magnetic playsets that you could create outfits and scenes on a magnetic page).

Leading up to the party, Bill and I were filled with a huge sense of dread. We didn't really know Kim that well and we couldn't imagine why she would invite us to her party. That's what was the confusing part about the whole thing. Did we make a mistake and give her the wrong impression that one of us liked her? We wracked our brains to try to come up with something besides the usual working in groups with girls as we did everyday for art and math, but we couldn't think of anything. I didn't even want to think of anything! It was all too humiliating.

Another thing confused us. Were we the only boys that were invited to this thing? If anyone else had been invited, it was being kept a very tight secret. After all, who would dare ask another boy if they'd been invited to the party, too? No one.

The day of the party came. There was no turning back. We had bought our present so we were backed into going to this party.

We skulked to the car and took the short trip to Kim's house, which we gotten the address from the student directory. Grandma Jordan pulled up to the house and noticed that there seemed to be a general lack of activity for a place having a birthday party. Grandma walked to the door and rang the bell. She came back with some rather bad news, but good news for us! There was no party! It wasn't Kim's birthday after all. We had dodged a bullet that certainly would have damaged our already fragile reputations at grade school.

Now we were left with a gift to return and an even bigger mystery. Whose birthday are we missing?

We get home and the phone rings. It's the mother of the birthday kid and she was wondering if Bill and I were still coming to a party at Skate Island for our friend, Chris.

Grandma sets the phone down laughing musically.

"Chris K!" she hummed. "Ooooohoooohoooo! My goodness! I knew it was something with those initials!"

Bill and I were furious and relieved at the same time. We almost missed a skate party! We almost ended up in a girl's house to give her a birthday gift! It was way too much stress for a shy kid in the third grade to handle, but we managed to live through it.

We set off immediately for Skate Island. While we were still pretty bummed because we missed out on all of the fun of trying to buy a gift for our friend Chris, we did make it on time to the skate party. Chris got 3 dollars from my Grandma for his last-minute gift and he seemed pretty psyched about it so it all ended well.

Still, it's the one enduring memory that I have of Grandma Jordan. She always had a bright outlook on any situation.

I guess a funeral makes everyone crabby all the way around...

My Dad called me last night to inform me that my Grandma Jordan had died. This was sad news, but not so sad because she was in a nursing home and was rather old (94 or 95. I always forget). I mean, we have to go sometime. It shouldn't be sad when it's clearly your time to go and you're ready. Grandma has been ready for a while. That much I know.

So I get the call from Dad.

"This is your Dad. I'm just calling to tell you that your Grandma Jordan died."

"Oh, she did?" I asked. "When?"

"Tonight," Dad said.

"Like just now?" I asked.

Dad started to get a little ansy because he really doesn't like a lot of questions.

"Yes! Just now!" Dad replied.

"Well, how did it happen?"

"Your mother got a phone call from the home that Grandma had taken a turn for the worse and may have to go to the hospital. So she was just getting ready when they called back three minutes later to tell her that she had died," Dad continued.

"Now when you say, 'had taken a turn for the worse,' what exactly does that mean?" I asked. "What was wrong with her?"

Dad replied in the usual Dad way, "I don't know! Ask your Mother! She knows that stuff!"

"OK. I will. Sorry."

"That's OK.

The funeral is on Monday and I'm trying to get some details. I call my twin brother, Bill, on his cell phone, who was on his way to Omaha for a video shoot. Bill informs me that the funeral is on Monday and in Sutherland, Iowa, but that he wasn't going to go because he's going to be in California visiting his wife's family on a preplanned trip.

"That's too bad. I'll be sure to tape it for you," I said with a laugh because it was a joke. After all, one doesn't video tape family funerals to watch over and over again. Who would watch it? Oh look, there's Mom balling her eyes out. Remember that? Remember when Uncle Bob made that inappropriate joke and hugged the casket? It's not a good idea.

Bill yells, "What the hell did you say?"

"I'm just joking," I say.

"NO!" Bill yells some more. "WHAT IN THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?"

"I said, 'I'll video tape it for you.' You know. Because who video tapes a funeral? Is that even done?"

"Oh." He calmed down and I could hear his co-workers laughing in the background.

"Why? What did you think I said?"

"I thought that you said, 'Oh, Can't even make Grandma's funeral?'"

...which totally sounds like what I actually said doesn't it?

"No, I didn't."

"I know! Sorry."

People are generally more sensitive around a funeral anyway. Like the time that Bill and I were late for our Uncle John's funeral. John was my Dad's brother. He died suddenly one week. He wasn't very much older than my Dad at the time, so I'm sure it hit him hard.

The funeral was way up north in a small town in Nebraska that I'd never heard of before and had never been to. Well, Bill and I decided to drive up that morning to get to the funeral. We estimated how much time that we'd need and started off. We should have checked the weather report because it had snowed more in the north and going was slow. We got stuck behind several snow plows. It was obvious that we were not going to make it on time. We sped up and passed a cop while going 85. The cop going the other way kind of gave up a waving finger and we slowed down. We didn't get pulled over, but it was obvious that we weren't going to make it on time.

I remember one of us saying, "Oh crap! We're going to be late!"

"I know! Well, maybe we can sneak in the back? Maybe they won't notice that we're late."

So we show up about 12 minutes late for the start of the funeral. We walked up to the church. There's a guy outside and he asks, "Are you Bill and Bob?"

We apprehensively say, "That's us."

The guy says, "Your Mom thought the roads must have slowed you down. We've saved some seats for you. Follow me."

We follow him and he enters a side door! To our shock, horror, shame and embarrassment, he takes up through the entrance that just so happens to be in front of all the church pews. To make matters worse. We get a seat right in front of the casket which faces the rest of the church crowd! We both slink over to our seats and just sink into them. I look over at my parents who look like they were just going to kill us with their stares. I felt like such an asshole. I really did. Not my proudest moment at a funeral by a long shot. Sorry Uncle John.