The Penalty for Buying Books

[I ordered some books implusively on Amazon and casually mentioned this to Laura when she called me on the phone. Laura thinks I have way too many books already.]

Laura: "How's work going...did you email your mom?"
Jack: "No, but I ordered some books."
Laura: "What?! Seriously? You bought some more books? They better be on 'How To Please Your Wife'!"
Jack: "Um, yeah, all 3 volumes."
Laura: "Alright, I gotta go now and toss all your stuff outside! ... and turn on the sprinklers!"

A Very Smart Gun

[At the preschool where Laura used to work the little children are discouraged from playing with make-believe guns but boys will inevitably pick up a stick and point it at someone and say "bang, bang". When Laura would catch them and ask if that is a "gun", they would always deny it and claim it was something else. When Brianna was caught one day, however, she took a different approach...]

Brianna had rolled up a mat and was holding it like a gun.
Laura: "Brianna, is that a gun?"
Brianna: "But it only shoots bad people!"
Laura: "Then why are you pointing it at me?!"

Chip Munching

[ Laura stopped munching on potato chips and stuffed the bag back in the cupboard after she had already eaten several handfuls ... ]

Laura: "Okay, I'll just say no ... this time."

What Am I Thinking Now

Laura: "Know what would be a good idea?"
Jack: "You want a coffee."
Laura: "You're so right! How did you know?"
Jack: "It's easy to tell what you're thinking most of the time."
Laura [putting on a blank expression]: "Oh yeah? What am I thinking?"
Jack [concentrating]: "Hmm, nothing. Nothing at all."
Laura: "Oh, that's so harsh!" then, making a fist, "What am I thinking now!"

Lost Sanity

[Laura was trying to give the kids a bath upstairs one night...]

Jack: "Need anything from downstairs?"
Laura: "My sanity..."
Jack: "Your sanity? Is that where you left it?"
Laura: "Well, I'm hoping..."

Delusions of Power

[Laura gives herself willingly to delusions of power. If you let her hold a power drill, for example, she will draw it like a gun, point it at you, and in a low cowboy voice challenge you with "You talkin' to me?". So I guess I should not have been surprised when I teased her one night in the bathroom and she responded by grabbing an electric toothbrush...]

Laura (threatening me with her toothbrush): "You better watch it! I've got a toothbrush and I know how to use it!"

Playful flirting

[I made some lewd dancing gestures one night to get a reaction out of Laura...]

Laura (shaking her head): "I'm not one to judge ... but I will talk!"

Child Allergies

Laura (sneezing): "Achoo. Achoo. See, I'm allergic to kids. Two sneezes, two kids!"

Summer interns are not for spanking

[A while ago there was a Dilbert comic about an intern (Asok) who had to perform petty tasks for the full-time employees. There was one strip where the intern was stuck in a hole in the wall and people would walk by and spank him. This delighted Laura so much that she asked if she could have an intern.]

Jack: "I'm getting an intern this summer."
Laura: "Can I spank him?"
Jack: "No."
Laura: "Once?"

Laura: "What's his name?"
Jack: "I think it's Way Yen."
Laura (grinning): "Way Yen? Say when!"

First words of the day

Jack [just waking up]: "It's Good Friday today."
Laura [pointing a finger at me]: "So you should be good today!"

Snacks at Google

[Google has a huge variety of free snacks and drinks for their employees. Sometimes my joy and enthusiasm isn't shared by my wife who calls me from home after a long day with screaming kids (and without the free snacks). But lately, I've been cutting back on the ice cream, Dr. Pepper, and chocolate wafers and trying to eat healthier -- though not without a little skepticism from Laura...]

Laura: "Getting lots of work done?"
Jack: "Um, some."
Laura: "Or busy eating snacks?"
Jack: "No, I fnished consuming the snacks." [chuckle]
Laura: "Yeah, double-fisting them goes faster, eh?"
Jack: "They were healthy snacks."
Laura: "Oh, is that what we're calling them now? Were there air quotes around 'healthy' by any chance?"
Jack: "No really, they were healthy snacks."
Jack: [busy transcribing the conversation so far...]
Laura [suspecting this] "I'm going to start writing stuff that you didn't say, like 'I gotta itch my butt!' Ha, there!"
Jack: [still writing...]
Laura: "Whatever you were going to get me for our anniversary next week, you're going to have to double it."
Jack: "Okay, that will be easy." [chuckle]
Laura: "When were you going to try to come home? Cause, ya know, I'm going to change the locks!"

Pens

[I used to pick up lots of free pens from trade show booths, so I have quite a collection now including pens that light up, pens that stand up on their own, pens shaped like the state of Texas, pens that look like a rocketship, and so on. But very few are good quality pens that I would want to carry around. So Laura was a bit surprised when I returned home from the store with an unexpected purchase of a package of pens.]

Jack: "Look, I bought some pens."
Laura: "But we already have lots of pens!"
Jack: "These are good ones."
Laura: "But we have a whole drawer full of pens! See? In fact, the museum called and asked if they could have some!"

I have to go hide

[Our 4-year old Brianna was having a play date with Molly so the house was even busier than usual when Laura was talking to me on the phone...]

Laura (about to hang up): "Well, I can't be talking on the phone all day.....I have to go hide."

A good striking

[Jason was sick one Saturday night so I was going to stay home with him on Sunday...]

Laura: "Looks like you get a 'Get out of church free' card tomorrow."
Jack [hoping to sleep in]: "Oh good."
Laura [thinking Jack was a little too happy]: "Uh-huh."
Jack: "I mean, uh, darn, I wish I could go...but Jason is sick."
Laura [looking up toward heaven, and inching away from Jack]: "Wait till I get over here, God, before you give him a good striking."
Jack: "A good striking? So there are degrees of being struck by God?"
Laura: "Yeah, you know, there's the regular lightning strike, and then there's the extra good striking for people like you!"

Chocolate mousse flambé

Jack: "We're having a Finance committee meeting at our house tonight."
Laura: "So you'll need some snacks."
Jack: "Oh...uh...right."
Laura: "Oh boy. You should have told me. I just went shopping."
Jack: "Well, maybe you could whip up something...let's see...I think I would like chocolate mousse flambé please."
Laura: "I don't even know how to spell flambé."
Jack [teasing]: "You don't play the domestic submissive wife very well."
Laura: "I never got that memo. I think I flambé-ed it."