KIDS SAY THE DARNEDEST THINGS

A long time ago..I'm talking way over 50 years ago...there was an early afternoon TV program on CBS that Mom and I loved to watch called "Art Linkletter's House Party."  Mom was never big on soap operas, but Art was a different story.

It's kind of hard to describe his show.  It was part monologue, celebrity chat, self-help, audience participation, games (like "What's in the House?"), and then there was our favorite....the kids interview segment.  Art would have four grade schoolers sit down for some one-on-one conversation, and it was hilarious. The kids were typically precocious, and they would have Art and the audience rolling in laughter with their off-the-wall comments.  They'd be sort of clueless why the adults were cracking up, which made the whole gig all the funnier.  This portion of "House Party" led Linkletter to pen the bestseller, Kids Say the Darnedest Things.

...which all leads up to yesterday afternoon when Sweet Neighbor Girl unwittingly had me blowing up with giggles.  After she'd hot ironed my hair, which has pretty much become a weekly event this summer, we went to Sonic for Happy Hour and then returned to Casa de la Flaming Bore to resume our long-running card game of War, which we'd started the previous Sunday but STILL had yet to complete.  Since we are multi-taskers, we also turned on the TV to watch/play along with "Family Feud."  

So in the middle of the card game, the Feud question is:  "Name something you purchase by the pound."  I'm in mid-slurp with my cranberry slush and am thinking maybe hamburger or fruit would be good answers, when SNG excitedly blurts out, "A dog!!!"  And then I lost it.  Her answer struck me as totally absurd, and I needed to laugh big time, but I had this mouth full of slush, so I just stifled it and practically gagged as I struggled to breathe, swallow, and laugh all at the same time.

"Are you okay?" SNG girl asked.  "What's so funny?"

I finally caught my breath, choked down the slush, and told her, "Your answer!"  Since when do you buy a dog by the pound?"  

"Well, people can get dogs at the dog pound," she answered in all seriousness.

And then I busted up again.  "He said purchase BY the pound, not AT the pound!"

"Oooooooooh," she said, still not quite understanding why I was so amused.

"Never mind.  Let's get back to the game.  I think I've recovered."

So, we FINALLY ended the War game--she won--then we played a few rounds of slap jack, which I won, and then it was time to call it an afternoon.

"Well, I guess I'll go home and annoy my sister," she said, as she headed out the door with a cheery, "See ya!"

Art Linkletter was spot-on with the title of his bestseller.