She always retorts

Laura: One thing I have to do before your parents come is dust the shelf over the sink.  Your mom always asks "How could you let it get so dusty?"  And I reply, "Well, it's pretty easy...".
Jack: I think that was a rhetorical question.
Laura: There are no rhetorical questions for me.  I always retort!

Lifting weights

Jack: Can you "spot" me while I bench press?
Laura: I can't lift those weights!
Jack: You don't have to. When I slow down and can't quite lift them all the way up, all you have to do is apply a little upward pressure to help me finish.
Laura: What if the weights get stuck on your chest and I can't help you?
Jack: Then you can call the cute firemen to rescue me.
Laura: In that case, I'll just sit on the bar right now! ("Sorry, Mr. Fireman, I don't know what happened!")
Jack: Don't make me laugh while I'm lifting weights. Here we go... 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. uh .. 5 .. uh ..
Laura: Do you need help?
Jack: Not yet ... 6 .. uh .. 7 .. uhhh
[Laura freaks out and can't wait any longer and helps lift one side, tipping the weights, but we manage to get the weights up anyway.]
Laura: You asked for help, right?
Jack: Um, no, but thanks anyway. I guess we're done now.
Laura: Whew, I'm exhausted. Chloe, let's go downstairs and lie on the couch!

[A few minutes later...]
Jack: You could try lifting a few weights...
Laura: Yep, I'm going to get a really giant cup of coffee and lift that.

Prisoners of sleep

[One groggy morning, when neither of us wanted to get up out of bed:]

Laura (speaking in the tone of a wounded soldier): "You go on ahead without me. I'll just drag you down."

"Be" and "Quiet"

[On weekends, the only days we get to "sleep in", Jason usually wakes up early and starts playing with his toys. Sometimes he also wakes up Brianna (by flicking her bedroom light on and off) and then they both start making noise. One morning it was particularly bad, with the kids banging around and yelling at each other while we were still trying to sleep.]

Jack: "I already told them once to be quiet."

Laura: "That's like speaking French to them. They don't understand the words 'be' and 'quiet'."

Short days of Winter

Jack: "We are officially in Winter now. Yesterday was the 21st, the shortest day of the year. The days will start to get longer now."
Laura: "No wonder I couldn't get anything done yesterday."

The Opposite of Rhetorical

[I was going through the cupboards when I discovered a couple cartons of cookies that we were going to take to church. I should add that I had previously eaten some cookies (just a couple) that she was planning to take to the kids summer camp and Laura still hadn't gotten over that.]

Jack: "Mmmm, cookies..."
Laura: "Those aren't for you."
Jack: "I know."
Laura: "I don't think you do."
Jack: "Yes, they're for church. I won't eat them. Why do you think it's necessary to remind me?"
Laura: "Well, let's see ... why do you think it's necessary to remind you?"
Jack: "It was a rhetorical question."
Laura: "No, I don't think it was rhetorical. In fact, it was very 'torical'!"

Competitive teasing

[After Laura was teasing me one night trying to get a rise out of me.]

Jack: "You're just trying to 'get my goat'."
Laura: "Oh, I got your goat. Your goat is over here doing jello shots!"

Competitive love

[We adopted a dog (Chloe) that seems to be afraid of me so I try to show her that I love her. Laura wants the dog to like me too but at the same time she wants to be Chloe's favorite, which can lead to some funny exchanges between Laura and the dog.]

Jack (petting the dog): "That's a good doggy."
Laura: "See? He loves you, yes he does."
Laura (whispering to Chloe): "But not as much as I do ... keep that in mind."

True things that are true

[Google often has irresistible desserts and sometimes I will bring a sample home for Laura.]

Jack: I have a treat for you.
Laura: Well, hurry on home.
Jack: This is a really good treat. You'll like this.
Laura: Oh good, I like things that I like.

Cell phone "coverage"

Jack (phoning home from the office): "Sweetie, can you check if I left my cell phone at home? It's probably charging on the counter."
Laura: "Yep, it's here. Oh, let's see if it has any pictures of girls on it..."
Jack: "Ha, ha. Why don't you take some of yourself, dear..."
Laura: "It would take two phones to take my picture..."

[As if the field-of-view of one cell phone camera wasn't big enough.]

Everything's a competition

Laura: "I need a haircut."
Jack: "Yeah, I need a haircut too."
Laura: "I need one worse."
Jack: "This isn't a competition."
Laura: "I know, because I won!"

[I guess you just had to be there...]

A husband's job

[There is a legal phrase used in divorce proceedings, something like "keeping me in the manner to which I have become accustomed". Laura has adopted that phrase with a wishful twist to it.]

Laura: "That's enough teasing for one day."
Jack: "But that's my job!"
Laura: "Well, you need to find another one. Like keeping me in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed."

Queen Laura

[I received a letter from Calvin College addressed to both Laura and me asking for help with fund-raising.]

Jack: "This letter is for you."
Laura: "No it isn't."
Jack: "See, it has your name on it."
Laura: "It doesn't say 'Queen' anywhere."

The shower caste system

[My parents and my sister were visiting from out of town so we had a full house and several of us wanted to take showers one morning.]

Jack [finding Laura just getting out of the shower]: "Oh, there you are."
Laura: "Yeah, I took a long hot shower. I had to do some scraping ... and some chiseling ..."
Jack: "Some 'chiseling', eh?"
Laura: "Well, it's been a while since my last shower..."
Jack: "It's my turn now."
Laura: "There are other people that want to take a shower so don't take too long or we may run out of hot water. I took a long shower but you have to take a short one. We have a 'caste system' here ... and we 'caste' you down!"

Too tired to riot

[The DirectTV satellite service mysteriously erased all our recorded programs (yes, really!) and Laura was understandably upset.]

Laura: "I'm about to start a riot! ... Except I'm too tired. So I'll do it later."