"Continuing the benign, but embarrassing, subject of kids saying the truth," says Kathy Gibbs, of Mandeville:
"Once when I went to the beauty shop for a perm, my regular stylist had to leave for a family emergency. She passed me off to a colleague who cut and permed my hair.
"However, the perm she gave me was very ‘tight,’ so I looked like I had a Brillo pad on my head.
"I was very upset, to say the least.
"The next morning, while getting ready for work, I was at the bathroom mirror trying vainly to make my hair look reasonably presentable. That proved impossible, so I dissolved into tears.
"My 8-year-old daughter, Carrie, came into the room, put her arms around me, and with great sympathy said, 'That’s OK, Mommy. I think it looks awful, too!'
"That snapped me out of my tears and made me laugh. We both agreed there were worse problems than a too-tight perm."
Good, bad guessers
Mr. G says, "Once our young granddaughter asked my wife how old she was.
"My wife asked her to guess. When she said 39, her grandmother, 58 at the time, said, 'What a good guesser.'
"Some months later, another granddaughter asked her the same question. She replied the same way.
"The granddaughter said 80. That was the last time she played that game."
Funny Kids Dept.
"Our grandchildren keep us laughing," say Marilyn and Dennis Martell, of Baton Rouge.
"Recently, 5-year-old Solomon asked his Mimi, 'How do you say water with your Philadelphia accident?' (It's 'wooder').
"His younger brother Bram, 3, recently visited the Blue Zoo Aquarium in the Mall of Louisiana. When the outing was over, he said, 'Let's go to the real zoo now.'
"'What's the real zoo?' we asked.
"He replied, 'The one where the animals have four legs.'"
Santa Duck
Mariano Hinojosa, of Baton Rouge, says, "Our home had an unexpected visitor last week.
"A duck from a nearby pond decided the top of our chimney would make a good place to build a nest. Bad decision.
"The nest failed and the duck ended up deep inside the chimney, atop the fireplace vent.
"After some serious flapping, it managed to clear the partially open vent and exit into the house.
"We opened the doors to the patio and it flew away. The cleanup is ongoing."
Special People Dept.
- Dolores Hebert, of Lafayette, celebrates her 91st birthday Friday, May 10. A retired RN, she worked at Lafayette General Hospital.
- Nell and Calvin Golden, of Baton Rouge, celebrate their 72nd anniversary Friday, May 10. She is a native of Avoyelles Parish and a retired LSU administrative assistant. He is a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea in 1950. They have had two LSU football season tickets for 72 years.
- Darryl and Janet Alello, of Baton Rouge, celebrate their 62nd anniversary Sunday, May 12.
Music appreciation
"I just read my daily dose of Trivia Skill," says Tommy Watts, of Baton Rouge.
"The first question was 'Who composed "The Four Seasons?"'
"The choices given were Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, or Vivaldi.
"What kind of dummies do they think we are? Everybody knows it was Frankie Valli and three other Italian boys from Newark."
Plenty of nothing
A regular but anonymous contributor says, "A few months ago I wrote you: 'I got nothing.'
"Well, now I have something …
" … and now I lost it.
"Whoever said 'The Golden Years' are golden?"