This weekend, we spent a couple of days at the cabin with Mike and Whoa-Nay, as Shef calls her.

Shef is so in love with Whoa-Nay that it’s a little scary. Upon waking at five each morning, he looked into my eyes and beseeched me to find Whoa-Nay and let him plaster her with kisses. Because I too have affection for Whoa-Nay, I kept him out of her bedroom until eight a.m., but precisely as the second-hand marked the arrival of that decent hour, I sicced him upon her.

“HI, WHOA-NAY!” he shrieked about a hundred and fifty times per day. For a full hour on Saturday afternoon, she engaged him in a frenzied game of peek-a-boo from behind the couch. He was so gleeful, he couldn’t really function.



After he went to bed, the rest of us grown-ups went about cabinly business: triple-fisting at dinner, trying desperately and vainly to finish a game of Trivial Pursuit Nineties Edition, and losing control of bodily functions.



Well, to be fair, the bodily function problem was really mine alone. It started innocently enough when I sipped some water just as Whoa-Nay was relating the punchline of a hilarious story. As a result of the laughing, I choked on the water and kind of spat up in my napkin.

“She’s totally throwing up,” Mike narrated calmly, as I tried my darndest to be discreet.

Then I had to excuse myself to the bathroom because I was in danger of wetting my pants from laughing so hard about vomitting at the table.

Even removed from the group, I couldn't stop the laughter. When I got back, the sheer force of my guffaws caused a third, truly unfortunate incident: a gaseous emission that packed just a few too many decibels.

"Are you sure you don't need to go back to the bathroom?" Mike inquired as I doubled over in a fit of laughter and humiliation.

Whoa-Nay howled and pointed. "I'll never forget this!" she yelled. "You hit the TRIPLE!"

It was really kind of the highlight of the weekend, humor-wise, and even so you might be wondering why I'd confess this to the internet. The reason is simply that it will make Whoa-Nay very happy, and after spending thirty-six hours with Shef attached to her leg, I'm willing to grant her just this much.