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  fortune index  all fortunes 
  
 |  |  | #6133 |  | My ritual differs slightly.  What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower stall.  Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped
 in I landed barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot
 character from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off
 of while he showers.  Then I hop right back into the stall because our dog,
 Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up powerful
 dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the bathroom and wants
 to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any one of which -- bear
 in mind that I am naked and, without my contact lenses, essentially blind
 -- could result in the kind of injury where you have to learn a whole new
 part if you want to sing the "Messiah," if you get my drift.  Then I hop
 right back out, because Robert, with that uncanny sixth sense some children
 have -- you cannot teach it; they either have it or they don't -- has chosen
 exactly that moment to flush one of the toilets.  Perhaps several of them.
 -- Dave Barry
 
 |  |  |  | #6134 |  | Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be tolerated until they acquire some sense.
 -- William Phelps
 
 |  |  |  | #6135 |  | Never have children, only grandchildren. -- Gore Vidal
 
 |  |  |  | #6136 |  | Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth. -- Erma Bombeck
 
 |  |  |  | #6137 |  | Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection unprotected.
 -- Robert Orben
 
 |  |  |  | #6138 |  | Never trust a child farther than you can throw it. 
 |  |  |  | #6139 |  | No house is childproofed unless the little darlings are in straitjackets. 
 |  |  |  | #6140 |  | No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.
 -- Florida Scott-Maxwell
 
 |  |  |  | #6141 |  | Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the substance of
 their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young and rob the old.
 -- Lewis Lapham
 
 |  |  |  | #6142 |  | On this morning in August when I was 13, my mother sent us out pick tomatoes.  Back in April I'd have killed for a fresh tomato, but in August
 they are no more rare or wonderful than rocks.  So I picked up one and threw
 it at a crab apple tree, where it made a good *splat*, and then threw a tomato
 at my brother.  He whipped one back at me.  We ducked down by the vines,
 heaving tomatoes at each other.  My sister, who was a good person, said,
 "You're going to get it."  She bent over and kept on picking.
 What a target!  She was 17, a girl with big hips, and bending over,
 she looked like the side of a barn.
 I picked up a tomato so big it sat on the ground.  It looked like it
 had sat there a week.  The underside was brown, small white worms lived in it,
 and it was very juicy.  I stood up and took aim, and went into the windup,
 when my mother at the kitchen window called my name in a sharp voice.  I had
 to decide quickly.  I decided.
 A rotten Big Boy hitting the target is a memorable sound, like a fat
 man doing a belly-flop.  With a whoop and a yell the tomatoee came after
 faster than I knew she could run, and grabbed my shirt and was about to brain
 me when Mother called her name in a sharp voice.  And my sister, who was a
 good person, obeyed and let go -- and burst into tears.  I guess she knew that
 the pleasure of obedience is pretty thin compared with the pleasure of hearing
 a rotten tomato hit someone in the rear end.
 -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"
 
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