My cooking has always been the target of family jokes. One evening, as I prepared dinner a bit too quickly, the kitchen filled with smoke and the smoke detector went off. Although both of my children had received fire-safety training at school, they did not respond to the alarm.

Annoyed, I stormed through the house in search of them. I found them in the bathroom, washing their hands. Over the loud buzzing of the smoke alarm, I asked them to identify the sound.

"It’s the smoke detector," they replied in unison.

"Do you know what that sound means?" I demanded.

"Sure," my oldest replied. "Dinner’s ready."

A couple of hours into a visit with my mother she noticed I hadn’t lit up a cigarette once. “Are you trying to kick the habit?”

“No,” I replied. “I’ve got a cold and I don’t smoke when I’m not feeling well.”

“You know,” she observed, “you’d probably live longer if you were sick more often.”

I’m now in high school, so when I ran into my third-grade teacher, I doubted she would remember me.

“Hi, Miss Butcher,” I said.

“Hi, Eddie,” she replied.

“So you do remember me?” I asked.

“Sure. You don’t always leave a good impression, but you definitely leave a lasting one.”

When a squirrel slipped into my house, I did the logical thing: I panicked and called my father.

"How do you get a squirrel out of a basement?" I shrieked.

Dad advised me to leave a trail of peanut butter and crackers from the basement to the outside. It worked—the squirrel ate his way out of the house. Unfortunately, he passed another squirrel eating his way in.