Mrs. Zuppa was coming in from bingo just as I was leaving the building. "Looks like you're going to work," she said, leaning heavily on her cane. "What are you packin'?" "A thirty-eight." "I like a nine-millimeter myself." "A nine's good." "Easier to use a semiautomatic after you've had hip replacement and you walk with a cane," she said. One of those useful pieces of information to file away and resurrect when I turn eighty-three.

I rushed us out of your parents' house because I didn't think I could manage two hours at the dinner table with everyone focused on Joe Loosey's joystick sitting in the refrigerator next to the applesauce.

I looked over at him. "Is that a proposal?" There was total silence for a couple beats. "I'm not sure. It just popped out." "Let me know when you're sure." "Would you say yes?" Morelli asked. "I'm not sure.

You need teeth like mine!" Grandma said. "You can just mail 'em to the dentist!

Ranger locked eyes with me. "Please," he said. Tank and Hal were goggle-eyed. They weren't used to "please." I wasn't used to it either. But I liked it. Okay," I said. "Be careful. He's insane.

Turns out, that's how it is with weddings. You just keep getting in deeper and deeper until you want to throw up.

And the closest I've come to an out-of-body experience was when Joe Morelli took his mouth to me fourteen years ago, behind the eclair case.