$#*! Mike Says

     Remember the TV show starring William Shatner called $#*! My Dad Says?  I've collected some of  Mike's verbal gems (think doggie diamonds).
     A while back, I thought I would personalize a set of bed linens.  I decided to copy something I saw in a Pottery Barn catalog.    I took the pillow cases to Al's Custom Interiors and Embroidery in Mt. Holly to get "bonne nuit," French for "good night," embroidered on the hems of the pillow cases.  The pillow cases were on the guest room bed for quite some time before Mike noticed the embroidery.  He asked, "Who is Bonny Newit and why do we have her pillow cases?"  So much for thinking I was so sophisticated.
     After the last snow storm, we stood at the kitchen window and watched the birds eating from the neighbor's feeder.  I wondered if the neighbors, like us, had nests in the rain gutters and roof angles and in their low, bushy trees.
     "Maybe they eat there and reproduce here," I conjectured.
     "People don't have their babies at the supermarket," was Mike's reply.  That's almost universally true.
     Some of Mike's best material comes from trying to read subtitles or the guide information on the television before it disappears from the screen.  That's how "savoire faire" became a "suave affair" and "Caligula" became "calligrapher."  Mike is not the only one who mispronounces with humorous effect (and I think he does it on purpose to make me laugh).  I used to know someone who referred to Beyoncé as Bouncy.  Sort of captures some of her essence, doesn't it?
     One of my favorite examples of $#8! talk comes, not from Mike, but from a stranger.  We were at a sporting event when I heard a little boy question his father's choice of  beer instead of juice. You have to keep things simple with kids.  Dad's reply: "I like beer better than juice."  Lot's of people do.