Seriously_.I'm Kidding - Ellen DeGeneres [12]
You tell the kids that but it doesn’t go well at all so you head back inside and ask if you can do anything to help because you’re polite, and also because your mom is giving you the “You better ask if you can help, I didn’t raise you to just stand there and do nothing” look. You hope the answer will be no, but your aunt says, “Sure! I haven’t made the sweet potato pie yet. You can do that!”
Then you panic because you’ve never known the difference between a sweet potato and a yam and both are on the counter, and if you start making a yam pie you’ll never hear the end of it.
So you start making a yam pie. Luckily, people are distracted by a dozen grown men screaming in the living room because little Timmy unplugged the TV just as a football team was scoring a touchdown.
Timmy starts to cry. The dogs start to bark. Everyone finally sits down to eat. The wine will start flowing and so will the secrets. Guess what? Mom’s pregnant. Guess what else? So is Dad. He can do that now.
You scarf down your meal and head home wondering if everyone’s family is that crazy. The answer is a resounding yes.
But we should be grateful for them because without our family—the ancestors we descend from, the cousins we see once a year, the loves of our lives we see every day—life is pretty boring. You don’t have to believe me, but you should. I’m royalty.
What Would Jesus Do?
I don’t know if you’ve read a magazine lately or gone online or watched TV or visited a mall—I don’t know what you do in your spare time and frankly it isn’t any of my business. But if you have done any of those things, you’ve probably been asked to participate in an opinion poll. Opinion polls have become incredibly popular. People love them. I know because I read that in an opinion poll.
Lately it seems that every magazine has a poll, every tabloid has a poll, every Internet site, every bedroom in my house. That’s a different kind of pole, but I’m just sharing with you. And I have to say—I’m not sure that all these polls are totally necessary. A lot of them ask the same questions. Which couple is cuter? Do you like her dress? Do you like his shirt? Who wore it better? Are they too skinny, too fat, too pretty, too ugly, too tall, too short, too hairy, not hairy enough?
Many of them ask questions that not only seem unnecessary but, to use a technical term, are also bonkers. I won’t say the name of the magazine (it sounds like “Pin Style”) I stole from my dentist’s office but there was a poll in it that asked readers, “How far will you take the season’s hot shade of green?” Thirty-nine percent of people said “All the way,” 37 percent said “Halfway,” and 24 percent said “Just a hint.”
Now, here’s my first question: What?! How far will you take the season’s hot shade of green? What does that mean? What does it mean to take green “all the way”? Like, to the prom? Are you going to settle down and have children with the color green? And look how close it is between “All the way” and “Halfway.” There’s only a 2 percent difference. I’m surprised we didn’t hear about that on the evening news.
I read another poll in a different magazine that I cannot and will not name even if you beg me to. (It sounds a lot like “Clamor.”) It asked readers, “Hot pink dress—is it a do or a don’t?” Now here’s my question about this poll: Who cares? If you want to wear a pink dress, wear a pink dress. It doesn’t matter what other people think. One hundred percent of the people polled could say a pink dress is a “do” and guess what? I still ain’t wearing one.
I’ve been in these magazines and it’s always an awkward thing to open one up and see yourself compared to a bunch of random people. It’s like, “Who wore it better? Ellen or Heidi Klum?” And obviously when you put the two of us side by side, it’s just not fair to Heidi.
They go after everyone in those polls. I actually think if Jesus were alive today, there would be polls about him in Us Weekly. “Who wore this flowy gown better? Jesus or J. Lo?” “Jesus’s sandals—hot to trot or heavens no?” “Do you think Jesus should cut his hair?