Never let it be said that we can’t use humor to end an argument.
I recently posted this on facebook, “Serious advice for the ladies: If you share an office area with your sweetheart, as I do, get a pretty little dish and sit it by your mousepad. Now, get an itty bitty squirt gun and keep it filled. When he pops off with something he *knows* he shouldn’t have said, well… It’s just so satisfying, and you don’t have to say a word. Special note to the fellas: only the women are allowed to be armed. Got it? Good.”
The result was interesting, if predictable: eleven women immediately ‘liked’ it. When I mentioned that I hadn’t seen any men doing the same, one man began a conversation that naturally ended with men having bigger-better squirt guns. I’d just like to point out that it didn’t happen that way at my house, because my husband is (a) remarkably tolerant, and (b) has a well-developed sense of humor and (b.1) self-preservation.
Squirt guns are actually in stock, here. So are bubbles, tiny race cars, magic tricks, and other dollar store toys. You’d think we have small children or young grandchildren nearby. We have neither. What we do have are lots of honeymooners and folks having romantic getaways, who want to take a picnic basket out into the mountains for an al fresco meal in the sunshine. The baskets are filled with sandwiches, chips, fruit, cheese, olives, drinks, and usually a pie. And toys. Always toys.
Typically, that is a pair of squirt guns. Now, I used to put just one in there. Filled, of course! In a Zip-lock bag. And then one day, it occurred to me that once the water was gone, game over! So, I started including two.
In a transcendental moment of BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious*) I realized how much more fun it would be to just fill one squirt gun. The game then becomes one party squirting while the other rushes to figure out how to fill his (ok ok ‘his’ because you know the girl is smart enough to get the full one). Once he’s got his filled, she’s about empty, and the roles reverse. Bam! The game goes on until someone surrenders. Given that this is a romantic getaway, surrenders are likely accompanied by kisses. Now *that* is a great picnic.
Voila. True love, abetted by squirt guns. Who knew.
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*BFO is a term I learned from Jeremy Robinson, former editor, innkeeper, and self-proclaimed curmudgeon
