In the Pen?

        The three younger grown kids bought Richie, the eldest, a fabulous fountain pen for his birthday. First they sent an inkwell for him to have while he anticipates the pen’s arrival.

          Richie texted, “Wow, thank you so much for the birthday present, everyone! This is just amazing.  I can’t wait to write with it.”

          The others responded with gladness, and eagerness for him to try it out. But they couldn’t simply leave it there.

          Brandon: In the meantime, you can just finger paint with the ink.

          Richie: Ha—people will think I tried to rob a bank and got hit with a dye pack.

          Brandon: Yeah! They’ll think you’re a super cool bank robber. Everyone loves a heist.

          Nicole: Sounds like this is going to open a lot of doors for you.

          So if you see a guy who is possibly too tall for the mug shot measurement lines, and he has black ink on his hands, 

just know that he wasn’t actually robbing a bank; he was finger painting.

          Have you ordered your copies of A Little Christmas Prayer, yet? I’m telling you, it’s the ideal gift for anyone, of any age, and of any faith. Rock-bottom price, too (and the Kindle version is just 99 cents)!

Like Adding Gasoline to the Fire

          Well, it had to happen. With all this social distancing, we’re texting and Zooming more than ever.  And this means the odds of sending a message before reviewing it have just gone up. You guessed it—we’ve added another dreadful auto-correct problem to our arsenal of embarrassing tech moments.

          This time Bob was dictating a text to his doctor’s office about a basal-cell spot on the side of his nose. And here is what they read:

          “I’m keeping gasoline on it for comfort.”

          Yep, and you thought you’d heard every old wives’ tale about cures and remedies.

          No sooner had he sent it along than he read it, cringed, and called the office where a woman, laughing hysterically, answered the phone. He explained  that he meant Vaseline and she understood.

          But I’m still betting that text went viral.

In between reading my books, check out this blog post about another horrendous text Bob sent to a law enforcement officer. But of course.

How to Turn Ministering on its Head

          I’ve told you before that the LDS church does a really cool thing. We minister to each other by assignment. Each of us is given three or four (or more) people to watch over, visit every month, and basically just befriend. Ideally no one could ever fall through the cracks—we’d know if someone was sick, unemployed, struggling in any way, and then we can address it.

          For years we’ve had a couple of men who visited every month and who always asked if there was anything they could do for us. Mostly we chatted, and they always shared an uplifting spiritual message.

          And then, as things go, they got reassigned. BUT… one of them is so faithful and sincere that he still reaches out. And the other day, since he can’t come by during the quarantine, he sent this very sweet, innocent text:

          How are you guys doing?

          Rule #1: You never give St. Bob an opening line like that.  Here’s what Bob wrote back:

          This information is no longer available to you as you’re no longer our ministering brother. Your subscription expired. However, for a slight fee of $1,189.99 you can re-register to join in and get this information.

          Luckily, the guy knew Bob’s personality and wrote back that he was dying laughing. Welcome to my world, my brother.

Yes, St.  Bob shows up in several of my novels.  Many a fictional husband has been based on him. Check ‘em out!