Hi, my name is Amanda, and I can’t say the word niblet with a straight face.

It’s sad, really. Some poor woman named Nan Niblet keeps leaving me voicemails at work, and I refuse to call her back because I can’t say her name out loud without laughing. Over and over again, I imagine returning her call:

“Can I speak to Nan, please?”

“Which Nan?”

“Nan N.?”

“They’re both Nan N.”

“In that case, I dialed the wrong number.” (CLICK)

My coworker asked me to smell her finger.

“Um, no thank you?” I said.

She rolled her eyes. Where was my sense of adventure?

“It’s a good smell,” she said. “Perfume. You like?” 

Reluctantly I sniffed, and I had to admit, “Your finger smells very nice. Fresh. With a hint of botanicals.”

"Look, Mom!” my 4-year-old son howled, racing around Target’s lingerie department with a padded bra slung over his tiny shoulders. “I made a booby backpack!”

“Keep it down, pal,” I said. “We’re just getting started. Let’s try to be cool here.”
 

He high-fived a pair of granny panties and did a little scissor kick in the air, nearly taking out the adjacent rack of bikini briefs.

I asked my husband how his day was.
 
“My mom fell and broke her elbow. She had to get seven stitches in her face.”
 
“Jeez. What happened?”
 
“She FELL.”
 
“I got that part. How did she fall? Where? And, most importantly, how many witnessed it?” Inquiring klutzes want to know.
 
“I don’t know. She fell at the bank or something.”
 

It’s not that I’m too lazy to clean my house. It’s that I’m married to a man who thinks hanging up a pair of pants is a home improvement project best left to the experts. And when he salts his food, he doesn’t even aim for the plate; he just holds the shaker over his head and salts the entire kitchen table. (Because you never know, he may want to eat that too!)