We stole the grandsons from their parents tonight. The parents were not at all opposed to this, pretty sure they like a little alone time every now and then. Most of the time, we pick the boys up on a Friday evening, which as you all know is the day I wrote a story. Once upon a time, when our grandsons were much younger and more frivolous, I would beseech them to give me fodder for silly “Happy Friday!!!” stories. Alas, that time appears to be waning. Whether it be maturity (Huh?? What’s that??), or some sort of societal influence, I just don’t know. But for whatever reason, tonight pulling silliness from their noggins was more challenging than usual. These days, they’re laser focused on video games. That’s OK I suppose, but if they had their own way the games would be on 22.4 hours a day, 7 days a week. The remaining 1.6 hours would of course be reserved for eating and going to the bathroom. Anyway, shortly after we got to our house I asked them a favor.

“Hey guys, put the devices down for a few… I need some nonsense sentences for Happy Friday,” I announced. Their response: crickets. Figuratively speaking of course. In other words, they didn’t give me crickets, but when they stared at me silently with glazed eyes, I thought maybe some crickets should be singing in the background. I tried to kick things off.

“My elbows don’t reach to the floor anymore;” I blurted. Both of them smirked and chuckled a bit.

“Cheese,” Ollie replied. Sounded like a good start… so I implored them to continue, but again, crickets. Then I suggested something truly fun (at least I enjoy it greatly): opening the Notes app on the iPhone, and instead of typing, one presses the microphone icon and utters gibberish. Apparently, both boys were aghast at such a suggestion; as they both floundered and were unable to say anything silly. So again, I led the way.

My gibberish was transcribed into, “Marcus, nap and phlegm painting and bad snow Chi Amo.”

Then Ollie chimed in with a brief blurb, which became “Matinee.” “Good!” I exclaimed. Got anything else?

More crickets.

My turn again: “There’s no excuse for zucchini it doesn’t look anything like sheep.”

Gabe finally ventured an unintentional contribution: “I don’t have a word in my brain right now.”

To my surprise, my Beautiful Girlfriend piped up, and the phone was sure she said, “Minewood beach chocolate strawberries.”

Then the phone picked up some random chatter: “Myrtle verbal I don’t think it’s talking anymore. Oh there goes.”

“The marsupial ate my friends lunch again,” I added. “And then the marsupial threw up,” my Lovely Bride continued. To prevent the momentum from diminishing, I hit the microphone icon again and pointed at Gabe. He was speechless. I interjected, “You’re frightened of the phone? My nostrils are full of splinters again. Both of my egg shells ran away with the cheese maker!”

Ollie busted out with some more gibberish, which was transformed to “Tap the top sick restart.” Then he paused momentarily and dug up something on his phone: “The top 16 words that start with H are hack, handy, holy, humane, hilarious, handsome, handsomely, halo, heartening, heavenly, hunk, honorable, hood, humble, heart, and husband.”

“My husband is a coffee pot!” I replied. And finished the composition with that old saying that everyone knows: Snake snot slithers silently, stupendously, and stinky.

Whew!! That’s enough for one day, don’t you think??

Well except of course for the video fun…