Remember the Time...?

There comes a time in every relationship be it between husband and wife, brother and brother, friend and friend, crazy old uncle and the Thanksgiving day crowd - when all the stories have been told, the jokes delivered, and issues debated and dissected down to the minutest parts.

We all try to keep listening anyway knowing that we will likely be shown the same courtesy when we tell for the umpteenth time about the time we ...


Members of a certain family in our acquaintence, when a certain nonstop talker comes to call, take turns indicating by silently holding up fingers behind his back how many times they have heard the current story in his running monologue. We understand that the next time he visits teamwork will be needed to supply enough hands and digits to continue this smartypants tradition for some of the golden oldies on his playlist.


Stop us if you've heard this one...One of the only jokes we remember and can usually tell correctly is about a joke-telling club whose members had told the same jokes for so long that they all knew all of them by heart. They had decided to save time by assigning a number to each joke.

The teller would simply stand up and say for example, "Number 9."

Laughter from the group would follow as jokes were told all evening long with different numbers receiving a variety of responses from giggles to knee-slapping guffaws.

A visitor to the club observed for quite awhile and then asked to give this brilliant system a try. "How hard could it be?" he thought.

"Number 18," he called out with a big grin and an eager look of anticipation.

Only silence followed.

"Why is no one laughing?" he asked.

"Well," said an old member, "some people just don't know how to tell a joke."



So, everyone around you has heard all you have to say, over and over and over again. Now what?

Time to find a new audience. To save our marriage from becoming a daily conversation that goes something like this...

"Did I ever tell you about...?"

"Yes."

"Remember when...?"

"Uh huh."

"It is just like the time I..."

"Saw Ed McMahon in the giant redwoods scolding his children. Yeah, I know."

We started blogging and now have encouraged the spouse to also start a blog of tales old, and new.

Allow us to introduce Detritus of Empire - Unearthing odds and ends from the past and the present.




It's your turn to listen and politely nod (without nodding off) for awhile.

Thanks. Really. Thanks.