How Bill and I sound to others while on the phone to each other...

"Yo!" Bill said to me as he answered the phone the other day. He was with some people who were kind of listening to the one-sided conversation on his end. When he got off the phone, he was asked who he was on the phone with.

"My brother," Bill said.

"Yeah, I figured," one of them said. "I can always tell when he calls because you talk to him like an asshole."

I had to laugh at that because we've often been accused of doing nothing but arguing when we're together. It sounds like we're having a row, but that's just the way we communicate sometimes. We once rode in a car to Chicago with my wife, Laura to try out for a trivia show on VH1. We were all on the same team. After the trip, Laura stated emphatically that in no way would she ever ride with us on a trip again. It was all she could do to drown our arguing out.

That same week as my call to Bill in which he was considered rude by those listening in, Bill had called me from where he was on a business trip after he had gotten in for the night. I had just watched one of our favorite shows the night before, and we were discussing it. This usually involves a lot of "Remember the part when?" with one of us describing the joke and us laughing at it.

Laura calls is "reminiscing" about a show. I've tried to do this with her, but she doesn't have the whole twin link, so it usually bombs.

As I'm talking, I hear from the bedroom from Laura, "Why is she still up?"

I told Bill to hold on and walked over to the bedroom.

I told Laura that Julia was in bed and that I was talking to Bill on the phone.

She laughed and said, "Ohhhh! I thought you were talking to Julia because it sounded like you were talking to a child."