And now, as promised, an excerpted entry (or three) from Erma Bombeck:

From Trick or Treat…Sweetheart

Mentally, I began to draw up  a list of rules and regulations that would give Halloween back to the little children.  How do you know when you are too old to go “begging”?

1. You’re too old to go begging when your mask tickles your moustache.
2. You’re too old when you’ve figured out the only thing a penny will buy is your weight and you’re watching it.
3. You’re too old when you drive yourself to the subdivisions.
4. You’re too old when you say “thank-you” and your voice is changing.
5. You’re too old when you are rapping on the door and Johnny Carson Jay Leno Conan O’Brien Jay Leno Jimmy Fallon Carson Daly the six o’clock news is signing off.
6. You’re too old when you reach over to close your bag and your cigarettes fall out of your pocket.
7. You’re too old when you have a sign on your bag that reads, “Personal Checks Accepted.”
8. You’re too old when the lady of the house turns you on more than the candy apple* she just gave you. [*vacuum-sealed at the factory, of course!]

= = = – ->

From The Seven-Inch Plague

In 1946, the suburbs suffered its first plague.

Its name was television and by 1966, it would enslave sixty-two million families.

The disease looked harmless enough — a seven-inch screen that looked like a hand mirror.  We put it on the bookcase in the living room, got a vanity bench from the bedroom and positioned our eyeballs 16 inches from the screen where we became mesmerized as a full-grown woman carried on a conversation with two puppets.

…My husband’s addiction to television grew steadily worse.  He became a sports addict who was in a catatonic state twelves months out of every year.

…Approached a lawyer to have him considered legally dead.  [The lawyer] said I would have to keep a log of my husband’s behavior over a year’s period of time.  I began to keep a diary in August.

AUGUST

The fifteenth of this month was visiting day for the children.  Waiting for a beer commercial, I lined them up and said stiffly, “Children, this is your father.”  He offered them a pretzel at the same time watching a beer can dancing with a hot dog.

SEPTEMBER

The set went out today during the Dallas-Los Angeles game.

I left him sitting in front of the black screen screaming and cheering.  Maybe I can talk some sense to him when he is watching the commercial that isn’t there.

JANUARY

I’m terribly concerned about what’s-his-name.  He has watched more bowls this month than the restroom attendant at Kennedy Airport.

FEBRUARY

Tonight, I slid into a nightgown made of Astro-Turf, and sat on the arm of the chair.

MARCH

He is alive (if you call this living) and is being fed intravenously on a diet of basketball, baseball, golf, and hockey.

There is something very unnatural about a man who has a niche in the wall and every day puts fresh flowers under a picture of George Blanda.

MAY

We put his mother in knee socks, shin guards, and a hockey face mask and shoved her in front of his chair for Mother’s Day.

My husband was watching a ping-pong game and granted her an audience for only a few seconds.

JUNE

In an attempt to clean out all the old things we never use any more, I realized that I had inadvertently set my husband at the curb on top of a rusted bicycle.

“It does a lot of thing,” I said [to the driver of the truck].  “It eats leftovers, contributes body heat to a room, and can quote more statistics than the Sports Almanac. We use him for a doorstop.”

JULY

“I’m leaving you,” I said calmly.  “I can’t stand it any more — the loneliness, the boredom, the roller derbies, the golf tournaments, the snacks.  I’m young.  I have all my own teeth.  I want to see a movie besides the Frazier-Ali fight.  I want to dance and drink champagne from a slipper.  Do you understand?”

“Shh,” he said, “there’s a commercial coming up.  The one where the beer can dances with the hot dog.”

= = = – ->

And lastly, from The Suburban Myth

Take me.  Please. My vocabulary has been reduced to five sentences which I mumble like a robot every day of my life.  They never change.

1. Close the door.
2. Don’t talk with food in your mouth.
3. Check out the clothes hamper.
4. I saw you playing with the dog so go wash your hands.
5. You should have gone before you left home.

The responses never vary — not in ten years of child raising.  One night at a party, I drifted into the kitchen in search of an ice cube when a devastating man leaned over my shoulder and said, “Hello there, beautiful.”

“Close the door,” I said mechanically.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he progressed.  “My name is Jim and you are ????”

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth.”

“Hey, you’re cute.  I like a sense of humor.  What say we freshen up your drinkypoo and find a nice, quiet spot all to ourselves.”

“Check out the clothes hamper,” I said brusquely.

He hesitated, looking around cautiously, “Are you putting me on?  I mean we aren’t on Candid Camera or anything are we?” He slipped his arm around my waist.

“I saw you playing with the dog so go wash your hands.”

His arm dropped and he edged his way to the door.  “Listen, you stay put,” he said, “I’ve got something to attend to.”

“Tell me you didn’t,” said Helen.

I yelled after him, “You should have gone before you left home.”

“Did you ever see him again?”

Never.