Cute. That's the correct spelling of potatoes, at least. I think Dan Quayle got set up on that trip to the school.

My daughter would walk by when she was little and say 'nothing.' Of course, that always meant she was up to something. She and dh were shopping together at the mall one Christmas while I shopped with the boys. We did our meetup. Dd told me they didn't buy a jewelry box for me there because they didn't find a good one they liked.

I can't tell who the man in the picture is so I don't get the joke. Can someone explain it to me, please? Thank you.

I have kind of a cute story. In 1982, I was a recent college-grad, newly moved to San Francisco, and during the Christmas season, I walked past the SPCA's adoption event on Market Street at lunchtime one day. I've always been a huge dog lover, and impulsively decided I wanted to buy all the dogs chews for Christmas, so I stopped for a few minutes to talk to the woman in charge to find out how many dogs there were in total, where I could drop the chews off, etc. We had a good 10-minute conversation. During our conversation, I was slightly aware of a youngish man standing off to the side of us, but Market St. is a busy street with lots of people around, so I didn't pay him much attention. Anyway, after I made a plan with the volunteer, I walked quickly away, because by now I was a bit delayed getting back to work after lunch. Half a block later or so, I suddenly, I felt a bit of a tug on my arm and turned to see the young man who had been listening to my conversation with the SPCA volunteer walking quickly as if to catch up with me. "Excuse me," he said, with a heavy Eastern European accent. "I sorry to be nosy -but I never see this before. You are buying shoes for all the dogs for Christmas?" It just cracked me up, to think of him sitting there thinking, "These crazy Americans, they buy shoes for their dogs!" I think I got him straight, but the funny thing is now, nearly forty years later, it wouldn't seem all that bizarre to buy shoes for dogs!