Toddlers Have A Way With Words

Susan Lauer’s young daughter was talking about something she had done when she was 2.

“You know, Mom, when I was a teeter-totter.”

* Multiple choice: The secret to successful holiday entertaining at home is…A) making sure you have interesting stuff for people to check out in your bathroom medicine cabinets. B) inviting guests willing to talk to people they don’t know. C) offering a wide selection of hearty beers. D) women sharing recollections about having been groped by department store Santas. E) mistletoe mania. F) someone repeatedly using the word “extraordinaire” when introducing people. G) Italian food. H) candles. I) dancing. J) inviting at least one pair of enemies. K) a fireplace that puts out so much heat everyone has no choice but to strip down to underwear. L) the host drinking too much and then offering a series of candid observations about people not in attendance. M) no discussions of sinus infections. N) a lively argument about the merits of early `80s pop music. O) someone using the occasion to make a public declaration regarding happy news. P) hosts going to too much trouble. Q) deafeningly loud music. R) smiles. S) getting a good spot to stand in the kitchen. T) no conversations that start, “I’ve got to say you are the most transparently self-serving memo-writer I’ve ever come across.” U) flirting. V) no more than three guests whose laughter sounds like the cries of jackals. W) nobody emerging from the bathroom and asking for a plunger. X) the host not having to say, “Uh, Bob, I’d really rather you didn’t smoke a joint in here where the baby is sleeping.” Y) inviting good listeners. Z) other.

* Overheard in a store’s toy department:

Mother: “That costs $80!”

Boy: “But Mom, that isn’t even $100.” — submitted by M.G. Fackler

* Flat tire story: “Our teenage daughter was driving herself to Cle Elum,” wrote Sue Burford. “It was the longest trip she had taken by herself. She called on her cell phone to say that a tire had blown out and she didn’t know where she was along I-90. As we began to figure things out, she said `Oh, someone is stopping.’ And at that point her cell phone went out.

“I began all the mom panic thoughts about our wonderful child and what kind of stranger she was encountering.

“She called a few minutes later to say, `Dad is here.’ The driver who stopped was her father, on his way to a meeting in Wenatchee.”

* Today’s Slice question: Between home and your destination, what happened to that food you were bringing to the party?