When I’m late coming home (as I was yesterday), I often call Shannon from the car and tell her “Don’t pay the ransom! They let me go!”. Getting things wrapped up at the office before leaving for a week, I just called her to let her know I was still at work. Recognizing the situation by the phone number, she (instead of saying “Hello?”) immediately proclaimed, “I don’t have any money! You’ll have to escape!!”.

I love my wife.

A sign of just how much my wife knows and loves me:
Sitting in Sunday School, watching an R.C. Sproul video, Dr. Sproul explains that a “contradiction” (as in “A is not A”, and contrasted with “paradox” and “mystery”) is a non-sensical statement. “Nobody can understand a contradiction,” he says. “In fact, I’d go as far as to say that even God cannot understand a contradiction.” At this, I get a silly grin on my face and turn to my wife. She notices and turns towards me, sees my grin, and (reading my mind) acknowledges, “Yes, yes … Chuck Norris can understand a contradiction.”
I love Shannon Straffin.

“I need to write that down somewhere: dah dah da-dah, dah da-dah, dah dah da-DAH, dah dah daah daah DAAH. Because every time I think about how it goes, I think: daah daah, da-da-da-DAAH dah, da-da-da-DAAH dah, da-da-da-daaah.”
– Amanda, explaining her tendency to confuse two popular movie themes (A gold star if you can figure out what themes she “sung”)

“I’m frankly stunned by the quality of what’s streaming over the Internet to my television right now.”
– John, Upon firing up Netflix streaming for the first time

“That’s because you’re a geek who understands how things have changed. The rest of us just expect magic.”
– Shannon

“You know, sweetie, I won’t be wearing my wedding ring during my triathlon … you may want to be there to beat back the female competitors.”
– John, 3k into a 5k run with Shannon

“Just run faster than they do … I mean, it *is* a race, after all …”
– Shannon, 17 years into being married to John

“This hasn’t been washed… or if it has, it was with a stick of butter…”
– Shannon, upon retrieving a pot that the girls “washed”

First stop: the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, as we approach their newly opened “Dinosaur Trail”

“It’s starting to get a little Jurassic-y around here!”

Next stop: the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, leaving the “Warhol’s Polaroids” exhibit (which was more of historic interest than artistic, IMHO)…

“Well, he sure had a lot of fun with his camera!”

… and leaving the museum…

“Amanda?”
– John

“Yes?”
– Amanda

“Did you like the museum?”
– John

“Yes?”
– Amanda, unconvincingly

“Do you want to go there again?”
– John, trying to get to the truth

“Maybe when I’m older, and I appreciate ‘art’ more.”
– Amanda

On the way to the last stop (Northgate Mall’s merry-go-round), driving through the day-long rainstorm, now a massive downpour…

“I sure am glad we didn’t go to the zoo!”

… and on the way home…

“So, what was your favorite part?”
– John, curiously

“I think my favorite part was…”
– Amanda, interrupted

“You’re not allowed to say ‘the merry-go-round’. If you say ‘the merry-go-round’, then next year we’re going to the merry-go-round, riding it twice, and then going home.”
– John, despairing

“Oh… in that case it was the Dinosaur Trail.”
– Amanda, prudently

(During a conversation in which Shannon and I seriously consider getting some hens to raise in our pet-less, fenced-in backyard)

“We could name one ‘Henny’ and one ‘Penny’…”
– Emily

“… and one ‘Nickel’!”
– Amanda

“I just love the word ‘asymptote’. I mean, how many words have ‘m-p-t’ in them?”
– John, after just having used “asymptotically” in a sentence at lunch with Dave

“Um… ’empty’?”
– Dave, John’s best-work-friend (or work-best-friend, or… whetever), after about five seconds of thought

“Okay, other than that one…”
– John, somewhat embarrassed

“Scrumptious?”
– Dave, again after about five seconds of thought

“Okay, okay…”
– John, giving in

“My name is Humpty, pronounced with a Umpty…”
– Dave, singing, refusing to accept my surrender

“Okay, so anyway, as we were saying…”
– John, dragging the conversation back on track

Dave nods to acknowledge that we can continue the conversation and abandon the hunt for “m-p-t” words

“You’re still thinking, aren’t you…”
– John, after another five second pause, exasperated but laughing

“Verklempt?”
– Dave, now laughing as well, secure in his total verbal domination of the moment