SHAR-DAY

In my family, whenever one of us uses a phrase that is also a song title, one of us will invariably say, "That would make a good song title." For instance, if I were to say "You're a smooth operator", someone would say, sarcastically, "Hey, that would make a good song title."

Today at Gerald's family reunion, Ziggy and I were talking and he told me how he'd convinced his wife of something and I said, "You're a smooth operator." Of course, I realized that I had used an actual song title and Ziggy realized that I had used a song title and both of us knew the other knew. I said, "That would make a good song title, Ziggy." I had no doubt that he knew it was a song by Sade.

One of Gerald's nieces overheard the conversation (and not realizing that Ziggy and I were just being our usual smart-alecky selves) piped up and said, "It IS a song title--it's a song by Sade." Ziggy looked at me and I looked at him and he stroked his hand over his head--the international sign to denote "it's over someone's head"--and he sighed in exasperation. Another of his nieces said, "It's spelled S-A-D-E but it's pronounced SHAR-DAY!"

Ziggy said, "As IF we didn't know that!"

The remainder of the day Ziggy called me "SHAR" and I called him "DAY"!