I am a first-grade teacher and a new empty nester. One night I was trying out an art project: making a person with simple materials.

I took a coat hanger, attached a paper-plate face, put a shirt on the hanger and stuffed it. Then I sat it on the couch to see how it looked.

Later that evening my son walked in the door, home for a surprise visit. Taking one look at my coat-hanger friend sitting on the couch, he said, "Mom, it’s not that bad, is it?"

The photographer was positioning my new husband and me for 
our wedding photos when he asked, “Have you ever modeled?”

My cheeks instantly turned red. “No, I haven’t,” I said. “But I always thought …”

The photographer interrupted me, “I meant him.”

My five-year-old son is crazy about cars so I took him to his first car show. He loved seeing all the different models and brands and gushed over the big engines, the colors, and even the wheels. But the car he was most impressed with was a hearse.

“Mom!” he shouted. “Look at all this storage!”

A conference call is the best way for a dozen people to say “bye” 300 times.