GULLIBLE BE THY NAME

Tonight as I was getting Maggie ready for bed, she was telling about some of the boys in her class having a contest at recess today to see who could make the best armpit fart noise. Ahh. . . the wonder and amusement of seven year old boys. I told Maggie that her daddy won me in an armpit farting contest. I fully expected her to say, "MOMMY!" in her loud pretend indignant voice, but instead she said, "really?" so of course, I embellished.

I told her that he and two other men wanted to marry me, but Grandma and Papa told them that the one who could marry me had to make the loudest armpit fart. She looked at me wide-eyed and said, "and daddy won?" Without really trying, she had bought my crazy story hook, line and sinker.

I said, "well of course he won, we're married, aren't we?" I then told her that his beard almost got in the way of his winning. "It did?" she asked. "Daddy had a beard?" She was quite surprised at these revelations about our courtship that had gone unknown to her for all this time. "Oh yes," I told her, "Daddy had a beard down to his belt - and he had a small bird's nest in it. He almost knocked the birds out of the nest when it was his turn to make armpit farting noises and he was so upset about almost hurting the birds that he almost lost."

She looked at me skeptically and said, "he had a whole family of birds living in a nest in his beard?" "Of course not," I answered, "that's ridiculous. He only had two birds living there. How would he have room for a whole family?"

She narrowed her eyes at me and said, "are you for real?" "Ask your daddy," I told her. Just then, Chris came into the room and she said, "Daddy - did you used to have a long beard with birds living in it?" (she apparently had either forgotten about winning me in the armpit fart contest, or simply found the beard and birds story to be much more interesting.)

Chris gave me this look that said, "what in the hell have you been telling her?" but he did go along with me. He reaffirmed my story as Maggie supplied him with the details. She was quite blown away, never realizing she had such an interesting family. About this time, Chris was getting ready to leave for a meeting, and I was busy getting the kids into bed. I actually forgot to tell Maggie that we were only teasing. I probably should make a point of doing that tomorrow morning before school - - no telling what discussions may take place on the playground tomorrow otherwise!