Simply the Best

It’s Valentine’s Day today. First, I wish you all the love, adoration and admiration that you deserve on this day. Without getting mushy, I want you to know that I am fond of all my friends and people reading this blog. And that means you.

OK, I’m glad that’s over with. Normally, I don’t even like most of you. But today is a holiday about showing love, so I’m making an exception. Kidding. But you knew that and forgive me because you love me, right? Did I hear someone say “gag me with a spoon”. (That’s so 80’s, isn’t it?)

Anyway, I was awoken this morning by my daughter who somehow got this holiday confused with Christmas. “Honey, I love you but…WE DON’T GET UP AT 6:30 ON VALENTINE’S DAY!” That’s alright. Someday she won’t have any enthusiasm to show me that she loves me and I need to appreciate this now. So I didn’t punish her…this time. Seriously, how can you get mad at a kid that is standing at the side of your bed, holding a dozen roses in her hand, smiling from ear to ear, trying to show her mother how much she is loved? Somehow I can find a way. Hey, I went to bed at 3:00a.m. last night because of working on this blog. Before judging me, you decide. Do you want to have something to read on this blog or do you want me to be nice to my child? You can’t have both. Alright then, that’s what I thought.

This blog is going to be a collaboration between Dianne, Rachel and I. Should I lose my job, I need a back up plan and this is it. I’m thinking we should go into the greeting card business. People have told Dianne and I that we are funny. You folks don’t even know the half of it. We are constantly cracking each other up. For those on Facebook, or who have been in our company, you know we enjoy a good laugh. The “punnier” the better. The nice thing is, we are never in competition with each other. I think we just both like topping each other with the funny stuff that comes into our minds. Not everyone gets it; not everyone finds both of us funny; I dare to say it, but some people, no I can't say it. Ok, here goes, some people don’t think either of us is funny. (“WHAT?” “I know, crazy, huh?”) And that’s okay. We just talk about them after they leave.

Ok, back to greeting cards. Coupled with Rachel’s ability to draw and make cards, I thought we might make a killing if we grouped our talents. Rachel’s responsibility for this new venture would be to draw the cards. Rachel has been making cards for people since I can’t remember when. When she was old enough to hold a crayon, she expressed herself through art. All her teachers thought she would be an artist someday. I did too. Her drawings were advanced and her work has been displayed in galleries. But then, when she learned how to express herself with the written word, art became secondary. Now she writes stories and everyone believes that she will be a writer someday. But when she writes, she still draws cartoon characters to accompany the story line. (The writing thing, I’m not sure where she gets that from.)

Anyway, on holidays, special occasions or to show her gratitude to someone, I encourage her to make cards. Some of you have been the recipients of those cards. I want to tell you that it’s not that we are particularly thankful that you did something or that we’re thrilled that it’s your birthday or anniversary. No, it’s not at all about you really. It’s strictly for my amusement. The cards that she comes up with are always entertaining. I wished that I had kept a copy of all the cards she has made over the years because some of them were very hard to part with and now I can’t remember them. Plus it would have been nice to show an example of her work on this blog. But the fact that we did part with them and send them means that we were appreciative, thinking of you, or sad for you in times of sorrow.

As for Dianne and I, our responsibility to this venture is to come up with catchy lines to put in the cards. Let’s face it, between Hallmark and American Greetings, is there anything left to be said? I think so.

It all began two years ago, we were on a train heading to New York together. I had been working with someone that I wanted to compliment by telling her boss that she was the best. But I didn’t want to just say “you’re the best”. Too cliché. Too common. This woman that I wanted to compliment had been working with Rachel on idioms. An idiom is a phrase that someone would have to have some knowledge of to understand its meaning. An example of an idiom would be “kicked the bucket”. If someone said “My grandmother kicked the bucket” it could mean that she actually kicked a bucket, leaving a listener to picture that and misunderstand the meaning of the speaker. But in idiomatic language, “kicking the bucket” actually means “to die”. Per Wikipedia, there are over 25,000 idioms in the English language. Due to Rachel’s hearing impairment, she was being taught about idioms and how not to take things literally. In my head, there was an idiom for paying a compliment to this woman but I couldn’t come up with it. The closest we could come up with was the idiom “diamond in the rough”. But that wasn’t the one I was trying to think of. Sitting on the train with nothing better to do, the challenge was on: who could come up with the funniest new idiom meaning “you’re the best”.

On this Valentine’s Day, I will share the list that we came up with on that day. On this holiday, feel free to turn to your significant other and use any of these terms of endearment. They might look at you a little weirdly, but hey, you’re used to that, aren’t you?

They are in no particular order. I can’t remember who came up with each one. But I’m certain that the one’s you laugh out loud over are the ones that I came up with. Ha! (No competition here.)

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New Idioms That Mean
“Diamond in the Rough” or “You’re the Best”

• You’re the 13th ear of corn in a baker’s dozen

• You’re Imodium AD while staying in Cancun

• You’re bottled water in Mexico

• You’re the olive in my martini

• You’re the Grand Marnier in my margarita

• You’re the soap-on-a-rope in prison

• You’re the one peanut in the cracker jack box

• You’re the free space on my bingo card

• You’re the H in my preparation and the W in my compound

• You’re the cushion for the boil on my butt

• You’re the screw back to my diamond earring

• You’re the string to my tampon

• You’re a pearl in 1000 oysters

• You’re the other side of my turned over leaf

• You’re a slice of heaven in my living hell

• You’re a Porsche in my junk yard

• You’re the brightest bulb in the outhouse

• Out of all the crows, you are the blackest

• You’re the pick of the litter box

• You’re the apple of my eye-pod

• You’re the felon that keeps me Gellin.

• You’re a Corona stand in the desert

• You’re the answer to “Where’s the beef?”

• You’re the bag of peanuts on the airplane.

• You’re the caper in my chicken piccata

• You’re the dot on my /i/ and the cross on my /t/

• You’re the handle on my double-edged sword

• You’re the pencil I use to draw a blank

• You’re the other half to my half of mind

• You are Dory in my family of Hunky’s

• You’re the doctor who fixed the camel after that darn straw

And last, but not least…

• You’re the empty porta-potty at the beer fest

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Could we put Hallmark out of business or what?

My Kaneclusion: On this Valentine’s Day, let the people in your lives that make you laugh, who “get” you, know that you appreciate them. Make sure they know you think they are the best; that they are the diamond in the rough; that they are the string on your tampon. In my own way, I just did.

Taken from a card Rachel made for Dianne. Note: Signed "Editor".