Category: Humor

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Yesterday I shared with you that my wife Lori and I were going surfing (we’re on vacation celebrating 17 years of marriage- HEY, NO OLD JOKES!!!) We did, and Lori “owned” (to use my kids’ words for “showing me up!”).

Neither of us have surfed before. So we showed up for a lesson and were each handed a huge “barge” of a surfboard that a Rhino could get up on. The slogan of this “surf school” is “For beginners and cowards!”

Now you have to realize that it was a HUGE ordeal for me to get Lori to even get out on the ocean on a board. She is scared to death of sharks and was sure that she would be shark meat regardless of any statistics you throw at her. But she made the mistake of mentioning to me how fun surfing would be and I jumped on it before she had a chance to change her mind.

So here we are yesterday at the “surf shop” getting ready. The day started out hilarious as they handed us these “rash guard” covers for our upper body (long sleeve shirts) so we wouldn’t get all scraped up. Then they told Lori that she should wear some long shorts to protect her from scraping up her legs. So they dress her up like a clown and I can’t stop laughing. Here’s my cute little wife who was wearing this cute little swim suit… and now she looks like something between a clown and a colorblind tourist in blue floral print (not that my red outfit was much better).

My laughing was short lived. It was time to surf.

After a quick “land lesson,” our instructor Ikeka took us out on the water. Lori rides the first wave all the way in and I fall flat on my butt. A photographer was there to document the whole thing. Look! Lori stays up even when I wipe out next to her, knocking my board into hers.

It takes me about four times before I really got the hang of it. Meanwhile, all the instructors are gawking at Lori because (despite her clownsuit), she’s trying all these cool things that the instructer is telling her like switching to fakey (jumping off the board and switching the other direction mid-wave). And then… I kid you not… she does another trick… she puts her feet together, faces backwards and rides it backwards!!!

She showed me up big time.

But we had a blast and got to ride a few in together.

Yes, the biggest wave we experienced was about 4 feet. Yes, our boards were barges. Real surfers would have laughed at us. But we had a blast. And Lori’s a lot more sore than me this morning! Ha!

If you’re married and haven’t done something like this together… I recommend it.

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Okay… I just wrote about Ashley… but as you might know (especially those of you who have read about her on my bio page), she is a continual source of laughter.

Ashley has to write a daily journal for her 5th grade class. Lori and I love reading this diary of a 10 year old. It’s hilarious enough to hear the perspective of the world through the eyes of a 10 year old, it’s even funnier when it’s Ashley.

Today Ashley’s assignment was to talk about her family traditions (each day she is given a journal prompt assigning something for her to write about) for “the holidays.” Yes, not Christmas, but the holidays. Gotta be P.C. today. So this “prompt” asked her what she does for Christmas or Hanauka and asks her to provide details.

So Ashley brings me her first draft.

I say “first draft” because, even though Ashley would love for these entries to be just one draft, she has an author for a father who often makes her rewrite her entry (thank goodness her teacher requires a parent signature on the journal entry each night). This rewrite is often necessitated not by gramatical errors or sentence structure, but by the fact that she doesn’t hesitate to talk about the dog’s bowel movements, or other inappropriate subject matter. Then she’ll randomly throw in the word “CHEESE!” because she loves to tell people that she loves cheese. (Yes, in her speech to campaign for vice president at her school this year, her opening line was, “Hi, I’m Ashley and I like cheese!) Again… this is Ashley we’re talking about here… not your normal 10 year old.

So today she brings me her “holiday traditions” journal. Draft 1 reads fine (although I laughed at her description of where we get our tree) until the last few lines. After telling us about her traditions and opening presents she simply writes:

Oh, and I’m not Jewish, so we DON’T celebrate Hanauka. We celebrate Christmas!!! (emphasis Ashley’s)

So I bring Ashley in and tell her, “Ashley, it’s okay that you celebrate Christmas, but you kind of make it sound like it’s a bad thing to be Jewish or to celebrate Hanauka. Maybe you should rewrite this last section.

So Ashley takes her journal and rewrites the ending. I leave you with her complete journal entry.

Every year during Christmas time, my family decorates the tree together. I’m always very happy whenever that happens. First we grab our tree out of it’s box. Then we put it together. And finally my dad plays christmas music and we decorate our tree together.

Another Christmas tradition that I do every year is go to my Grandma and Grandpa’s house for Christmas Eve. But then on Christmas day we stay and celebrate at my house. Sadly, I’m not Jewish, so I don’t celebrate Hanauka. So these are all of my Christmas celebrations.

Cheese!

-Ashley McKee