Some quick little stories for this Sunday morning for you…

When I was in fifth grade, I was preparing for First Communion. The parish did this by sending home a series of letters that were to be discussed in the family. We were discussing the last one at the dinner table, and my mother observed, “In some churches, they don’t use wine at Communion.” My five-year-old sister gasped and said, “You mean they use real blood?”

On a trip to visit my grandparents in North Carolina, we had to drive past a paper mill. If you’ve never been near a paper mill, they smell. BAD. Being about nine years old at the time, I made the astute observation, “Phew-ee! That smells BAD!” Mom said, “That’s the paper mill.” I asked, “What are they making, toilet paper?”

A year or two before this, we were looking at a van to replace the one that was dying. I remember being at a dealership checking out one van that seemed to have everything one could possibly want in a van - including an eight-track deck! Dad made this observation out loud, “It has everything except a way to go to the bathroom without having to stop.” My sister thought for a moment, and then chimed in with “Bucket seats!”

My mother, sister, and I could be incredibly silly. Once we spent an entire dinner making puns on tushes, and sending each other into gales of laughter. Mom was in tears, and could no longer swallow anything. We’d manage to settle down - knowing it was too dangerous to make eye contact - and then one of us would just say “But…” which would send us all off again. Dad never understood.

Another time, I related a greeting card I’d seen in the store:

Don’t kiss your honey
When your nose is runny
You may think it’s funny
But it’s snot.

So we set it to music, in an impromptu fashion, and sang it at the top of our lungs while baking something - cookies? birthday cake? - until Dad came in and told us to stop because we were grossing him out. We then whispered it to each other, and had to stifle our giggles for the next half-hour or so.

Mom and I love Twizzlers. While watching a movie, we could go through an entire one-pound bag without really noticing, until our hands reached for the next one and found the bag empty. In the mid 80s, the 7-11 around the corner from our house had video rentals. It also carried BB Bats, which are a vintage candy. The chocolate ones taste just like the batter for devil’s food cake, and if you can imagine a woman whose husband is on a six-month deployment and her teenaged daughter, you’d probably see why this would be attractive to us. If we were bored, we’d head up there, grab a video to watch, and clean them out of chocolate BB Bats. Yum.