My friend Mary Ellen has a nine-year-old daughter, Amelia, who is naturally funny, although I’m not certain she’s funny on purpose.

Each year, the grade school Amelia attends holds a celebration to recognize the 100th day of school. The students in her grade class were to complete a writing assignment telling what they believed they’d be doing when they were 100. This is Amelia’s.

“When I am 100, I will be playing bingo at the Greenlodge Nursing Home. I will be married with one child who never comes to visit.”

Mary Ellen told me about another time, when Amelia was just three years old, they went to a Friendly’s Restaurant for lunch, where they each ordered a hot dog. When Amelia’s hot dog arrived, there was a large dill pickle next to it on the plate. Amelia, looking thoroughly disgusted, and said, “A salad! I didn’t order a salad!”

(Says Mary Ellen, “I guess you can tell there aren’t many green things eaten at our house.”)

Last winter, another of my friends was helping the children at her daughter’s kindergarten class get their coats at the end of the day. She said a tiny blonde girl came up to her and asked, “Have you seen my gloves? They’re pink.” The little girl paused, seemed to be considering something, then added, “And they’re kind of shaped like my hand.”

My own nine-year-old daughter, Celeste, comes up with funny lines on a regular basis. The other day, she was showing her stepdad a very loose tooth, then mentioned that she needed to run over to our neighbor Carolyn’s house so she could pull it for her. (She’s better at it than me.)

Geoff said, “It’s getting late. If you’re going to go, you’d better go now.”

Celeste looked him in the eye and said, “Not this second.” She allowed there to be a long, silent pause, then said. “Not this second either.”

“You’re a strange kid,” said Geoff.

“I’m not strange,” she said quickly. “I’m unique.”

Geoff and I recently moved our bedroom down to our basement, right before he left town for a few days. With him gone, Celeste decided to sleep downstairs with me. At bedtime, I put her hair in two braids to help keep it from tangling, then I told her it made her look like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. The next morning, she was awakened by her shaggy, little dog standing on her chest, tugging her braid. She looked around at the unfamiliar room and said, “Hey, Toto. I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.”

Celeste has more than her fair share of hair, and when allowed to hang loose, it can wind up looking like a brown bush–something that drives her father (who has personal hair retention issues) up the wall.

One day last week, when Celeste was looking especially primitive, Mitch complained, “Your hair is a mess.”

She looked up at her father’s aerodynamic noggin, squinted hard, then said, “And so are both of yours.”

I’m proud that my girl never curses. In fact, I suspect she sees herself as the self-appointed head of the profanity patrol. If she hears one of us slip and say a bad word, she makes us apologize to God for being offensive.

So it came as a huge surprise when, after she banged her head while jumping on the bed, I heard her say, “Man, if I cursed right now, I’d probably say sh**.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 30th, 2006 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.