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When God Created Mothers"When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts..all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands." The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.. no way." It's not the hands that are causing me problems, " God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have." That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded. One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word." God, " said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow.." I can't, " said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick..can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger..and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower." The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft, " she sighed. But tough! " said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure." Can it think?" Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise, " said the Creator. Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. There's a leak, " she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model." It's not a leak, " said the Lord, "It's a tear." What's it for?" It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride." You are a genius, " said the angel. Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.Erma Bombeck
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When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it's a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.Erma Bombeck
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There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.Erma Bombeck
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I am not a glutton - I am an explorer of foodErma Bombeck
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Housework can kill you if done right.Erma Bombeck
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Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.Erma Bombeck
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Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.Erma Bombeck
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Written on her tombstone: "I told you I was sick.Erma Bombeck
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Everyone is guilty at one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored, but mothers seem to have a market on the supply. "Do you want a spanking or do you want to go to bed?" Don't you want to save some of the pizza for your brother?" Wasn't there any change?Erma Bombeck
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Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.Erma Bombeck
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A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween.Erma Bombeck
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When humor goes, there goes civilization.Erma Bombeck
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Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.Erma Bombeck
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When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.Erma Bombeck
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It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.Erma Bombeck
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A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat.Erma Bombeck
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It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.Erma Bombeck
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My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?Erma Bombeck
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Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.Erma Bombeck
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When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he's doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.Erma Bombeck
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No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.Erma Bombeck
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All of us have moments in out lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.Erma Bombeck
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I have seen my kid struggle into the kitchen in the morning with outfits that need only one accessory: an empty gin bottle.Erma Bombeck
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Girls mature faster than boys, cost more to raise, and statistics show that the old saw about girls not knowing about money and figures is a myth. Girls start to outspend boys before puberty–and they manage to maintain this lead until death or an ugly credit manager, whichever comes first. Males are born with a closed fist. Girls are born with the left hand cramped in a position the size of an American Express card. Whenever a girl sees a sign reading, “Sale, Going Out of Business, Liquidation, ” saliva begins to form in her mouth, the palms of her hands perspire and the pituitary gland says, “Go, Mama.” In the male, it is quite a different story. He has a gland that follows a muscle from the right arm down to the base of his billfold pocket. It's called “cheap.” Girls can slam a door louder, beg longer, turn tears on and off like a faucet, and invented the term, “You don't trust me.” So much for “sugar and spice and everything nice” and “snips and snails and puppydog tails. .Erma Bombeck
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We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.Erma Bombeck
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If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.Erma Bombeck
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Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?Erma Bombeck
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Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.Erma Bombeck
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Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.Erma Bombeck
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One never realizes how different a husband and wife can be until they begin to pack for a trip.Erma Bombeck
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In Russia, as I sat there day after day wearing headphones, listening to the interpreter struggle to make our words relevant, I wondered if we could establish meaningful rapport with a nation that had never seen raisins dance in dark glasses on TV...never had a garage sale.Erma Bombeck
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It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windowsErma Bombeck
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Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.Erma Bombeck
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The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.Erma Bombeck
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Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.Erma Bombeck
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I come from a home where gravy is a beverage.Erma Bombeck
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You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.Erma Bombeck
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When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me.Erma Bombeck
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Have you any idea how many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen Three. It takes one to say What light and two more to say I didn't turn it on.Erma Bombeck
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Grandparenthood is one of life's rewards for surviving your own children.Erma Bombeck
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There was a time when the one singular thing that held a marriage together was the threat of getting the kids.Erma Bombeck
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Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.Erma Bombeck
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Laugh now, cry later.Erma Bombeck
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We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies, and the sand out of our belongings.Erma Bombeck
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Thanks to my mother, not a single cardboard box has found its way back into society. We receive gifts in boxes from stores that went out of business twenty years ago.Erma Bombeck
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One certainty when you travel is the moment you arrive in a foreign country the American dollar will fall like a stone.Erma Bombeck
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When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say "I used everything you gave me."Erma Bombeck
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Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for go live with a car battery.Erma Bombeck
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Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put "I love Mom" on the license plate.Erma Bombeck
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I read one psychologist's theory that said "Never strike a child in your anger." When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he's recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?Erma Bombeck
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Never lend your car to someone you've given birth to.Erma Bombeck
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The family. We are a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste coveting one another's desserts hiding shampoo locking each other out of our rooms inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant loving laughing defending and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.Erma Bombeck
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You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.Erma Bombeck
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I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.Erma Bombeck
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But some emotions don't make a lot of noise. It's hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint - like a heartbeat. And pure love why some days it's so quiet you don't even know it's there.Erma Bombeck
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What's with you men? Would hair stop growing on your chest if you asked directions somewhere?Erma Bombeck
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My mother phones daily to ask "Did you just try to reach me?" When I reply no she adds "So if you're not too busy call me while I'm still alive " .. . and hangs up.Erma Bombeck
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It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.Erma Bombeck
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It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.Erma Bombeck
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I am not a glutton- I am an explorer of food.Erma Bombeck
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There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say "Yes I've got dreams of course I've got dreams." Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it and yep they're still there. These are great dreams but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line to hold them up and say "How good or how bad am I?" That's where courage comes in.Erma Bombeck
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Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossipErma Bombeck
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When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.Erma Bombeck
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There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.Erma Bombeck
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Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.Erma Bombeck
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Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.Erma Bombeck
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Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.Erma Bombeck
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I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.Erma Bombeck
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Never order food in excess of your body weight.Erma Bombeck
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Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go.Erma Bombeck
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For years my wedding ring has done its job. It has led me not into temptation. It has reminded my husband numerous times at parties that it's time to go home. It has been a source of relief to a dinner companion. It has been a status symbol in the maternity ward.Erma Bombeck
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I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.Erma Bombeck
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Most women put off entertaining until the kids are grown.Erma Bombeck
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Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.Erma Bombeck
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Getting out of the hospital is a lot like resigning from a book club. You're not out of it until the computer says you're out of it.Erma Bombeck
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I have a hat. It is graceful and feminine and give me a certain dignity, as if I were attending a state funeral or something. Someday I may get up enough courage to wear it, instead of carrying it.Erma Bombeck
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All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.Erma Bombeck
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A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.Erma Bombeck
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Never have more children than you have car windows.Erma Bombeck
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When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.Erma Bombeck
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Do you know what you call those who use towels and never wash them, eat meals and never do the dishes, sit in rooms they never clean, and are entertained till they drop? If you have just answered, 'A house guest, ' you're wrong because I have just described my kids.Erma Bombeck
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Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.Erma Bombeck
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Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.Erma Bombeck
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My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.Erma Bombeck
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Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments.Erma Bombeck
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Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one Helen Keller is the other.Erma Bombeck
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I've exercised with women so thin that buzzards followed them to their cars.Erma Bombeck
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Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.Erma Bombeck
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I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.Erma Bombeck