Why am I the only normal one in my family? And why does everyone laugh when I ask that...?

It's been one of those Saturdays...I'd planned to have the house completely cleaned, and yet, at 4:44 p.m., I've managed to get some laundry and the dishes done. That's it. Oh, okay, I did go to the nearest CVS with one of my sons to buy a gallon of milk and some eggs, but other than that, I have gotten very little done. Yup, one of those Saturdays.

But I have noticed something...the people I live with are a little, um, odd, shall we say. The fact that they are two of my four offspring, and that they swear that their quirkiness is genetic, having gotten it from you-know-who (and not their dad), might be a little telling. I have been known to ask, "Why am I the only normal person in this family?" only to hear laughter and refrains of, "Yeah, right!"

So, this afternoon, after M. and I walked to CVS and back, he and his brother started talking about diphthongs, along the lines of, "You know what words sound weird?"

Diphthong was one of those words; the ensuing conversation went along the lines of, "Diphthong? Do you know how obscene that sounds?"

"Obscene it and I don't believe it, but please, keep your diphthong to yourself!"

It got stranger from there, the parting shot coming from M., who was on his way to his room to read when he stated, "I've come up with a great title for a horror book." What is it? I wanted to know. "The Despicable Dipstick and the Diphthong of death." I rolled my eyes as his brother informed him that that sounded weird.

Also, J. has a way of hearing a voice once and being able to mimic it perfectly. If the words hobble or wobble come up in conversation (which, believe me, they can on a daily basis, even if it's in a contrived way), J.'ll come up with a dead-on Edward G. Robinson voice and say, "Hobble, see? Wobble, see?"

Their conversations today have been, for the most part, as quirky as that, but then, truth be told, it's like that a lot. I still maintain that, while I'm a writer, photographer, artist, and former stand-up comedian, I'm still the most normal person in the family.

Don't laugh!