~ My father is the only person I know who has a serious UN-like sanction on Halloween. It's like his 10 Commandments of trick-or-treating. Except they consist of really but one rule: you have to a really little kid. No teens, pre-teens, if you're 12 and have a mature look, God help you. And it has to be him who answers the door so he can give the candy to the little cowboy or lady bug. It all comes off really cute...except when one of those said pre-teens comes a-knocking.

You'll know because he won't say anything like Cute costume or Aren't you an adorable bunny? Instead, he hands out the candy stern-faced and silent. My mother and I looked at him yesterday in protest; you have to be nice, Dad, I'd say.

Forget it, they were too big. Damnit, go home.

Real poker face, that one.

~ As a writer, it's upsetting how many good ideas, jokes and stories pass by without me writing them down. At some point during our sophomore year at ND, my friends and I decided to finally put all of our great quotes into a quote book that I hand-wrote copies of for graduation presents. Most quotes came from Sandra, the unintentional ring leader of our comedy circus, and to this day, they are priceless. But we estimated that we forgot at least 100 of our finest works to homework, lack of pen and paper and the blurry memory caused only by lots of beer. I figured I would've learned from those years of missed lines. But I've never really been that good at keeping a written journal or diary. I go days without updating this damn thing.

Additionally, and related, the concept of timing really does go underrated. It's key in everything from finding the right person at the right time, to telling a good joke. For instance, SM and I were bullshitting the other day and accidentally came upon this hilarious concept: what kind of tasks would God's assistant be asked to do? We were both startled by the sudden, hefty wealth of possible jokes and frantically began pitching well-intentioned puns.

Um, I'm gonna need you to take a memo.
Run to Staples and then pick up my dry cleaning.

But because we were unprepared and stunned at our accidental hilarity....not one of them really worked. We co-laughed and kept pitching but....crash. Tomatoes.

And when the sad, nearly forced laughter limped and faded, we acknowledged that we had squandered an amazing opportunity to be funny. Of course, I didn't write any of the semi-decent suggested one-liners down afterwards, which now might cause a chuckle. Figures.