Did you really JUST fall, Jeffrey? Why does everybody in my family talk in these dramatic CAPITAL LETTERS all the time? Why am I the only calm one?

Mr. Watras asked me whether I was practicing, and I told him I was practicing my tissue basketball skills.

...my little blurb wasn't going to win me any speaker-of-the-year awards, but at least I hadn't tripped and fallen off the stage, crushing and killing three elderly jazz fans.

Or maybe...their biggest fear is that they will get close to you again, and you'll go and drop dead.

I’ll probably just stand in a corner, trying not to be noticed, until the decoration committee accidentally packs me into a box at the end of the night. There I will lie, crammed in between rolls of crepe paper, until the New Year’s dance two months from now. Jeffrey thought about this for a moment and said, Won’t they notice the box is too heavy when they go to put it away?

You are a wonderful son, and a wonderful man. Yet another parent busting forth with the “man” thing! I’d have to check my chest for signs of hair when I got home.

Who’s that? That’s the King. Who’s he? The Duke. Who’s she? The Princess. What do they call you? The Count. What does that make me? Umm…how about the Peasant? And the name stuck.