Family Visitors: Don't Try This at Home!

If you were to squeeze my mom like a tube of toothpaste she would ooze empathy and compassion.

I don't recommend brushing your teeth with empathy and compassion, unless you want to end up with a mouthful of cavities.

So if my mom ever comes to visit you, look alive, peeps! LOOK ALIVE!

Don't look dead. Or weary. Or exhausted. Or downtrodden. Or sick. Or annoyed.

All of these looks will land you one extra large toothbrush full of empathy and compassion, and this is what it will sound like while you're brushing your teeth with it:

"Are you tired? You look tired. Are you sick? You look downtrodden. Are you exhausted? No wonder you're so annoyed, bless your heart!"

She won't just bless your heart either, she'll bless your dryer's heart too."

Yesterday she told me that my dryer wasn't drying anything. I said, "maybe we need to empty the lint catcher."

And you know what she said? She said, "maybe it's just tired because we've been using it all day, bless it's heart. We should give it a rest."

I said "maybe we should tell it buck up li'l cowboy! That's right. You heard me. You best giddy up and get your groove back on cuz we ain't near done with you yet.

I wasn't being rude, I was being honest. Dryers work a lot better when you don't give them any sympathy.

Besides the cavities I kinda enjoy family visitors. When you've lived away from home for 20 years you have a lot to learn about your famdamily.

Take my brother, Dan, for instance . . . we practically grew up together. We listened to America's Top Forty every week and started our own rock band writing hit songs like Kiss, Yea Yea and Kiss is in Trouble. Every year we rode in my papa and gigi's Subaru to the Mojave desert where we spent our summers eating Oreos and breaking our papa's t.v. and hiding from the promiscuous neighbors.

And yet there are so many things I never knew I never knew about him.

Like I never knew that if I said "hey, let's go to the beach," he would say, "Okay, let me run take a shower and put my jeans on."

And I never knew that he would fix my daughter French toast for breakfast so she could win her tennis matches.

And I never knew he would laugh himself silly while watching The Office then tell me I make the most tremendous freakin' caramel popcorn in the history of the world.

(I nearly hugged him, btw. And then I nearly told him it was Swirl's recipe.)

Having family visitors is cool, but proceed with caution. It's a dangerous game and I wouldn't try it at home. Leave it to the trained professionals because it's risky, man! Before you know it you may look around the living room floor at a half a dozen boys strewn out and snoring and realize your stone cold heart is drooping and your eyes are sweating.

(Not to mention you've got a mouthful of cavities.)