I Heart Erma Bombeck...

The deadline to vote in my online class poll has passed. Sorry if you missed your chance. The early bird gets the worm, and all that, you know. After many hours spent counting all the votes, the final tally was 3-3.

A BIG FAT TIE! (although my IRL friends seem to think their votes count more than my shiny, new cyber friends'....ummmm, no)

Yep, all that blood, sweat and tears and it's a TIE! Big help you all turned out to be. So, that puts the decision back on my shoulders. And, after pondering long and hard, the winner is........

• That
• B
• Jersey

I know, I know. Half of you are disappointed, but let me explain why before you rip my jersey dress to shreds in Cinderella's Evil Stepsister fashion. 

You see...I heart Erma Bombeck.

Erma Bombeck, for those of you too young to remember, was a newspaper columnist and author who wrote funny stories about being a suburban wife and mother. I guess you could call her the precursor to today's "Mommy Bloggers". She didn't write as an expert on any subjects. She wrote about her regular, ordinary life.
 

I had long since forgotten about my love for Mrs. Bombeck. It wasn't until I started this blog that I remembered my junior high fascination with all things Erma. While my friends and I were secretly reading and underlining the racy passages in this...

I was also secretly nose deep in this, guffawing my way through along with the rest of the 35 year old suburban housewives who were her target audience.

Don't ask me why. I don't know HOW I discovered Erma. My mom didn't read her books; neither did my sister nor my grandmother. Yet somehow I found myself waiting impatiently for each of her new books.

Maybe her column was printed on the same newspaper page as the Daily Jumble; another one of my younger days' fascinations. Wow! I never realized what a nerd I was back then. Good thing nobody knows these deep dark secrets. Maybe it was the only book available that I could understand at the airport newsstand on one of our family vacations. Maybe it was Erma herself trying to guide me in my journey of what I should be when I grow up.

I just don't know.

I do know that I haven't thought about her in years yet she came to me in the shower this morning. I was shampooing my hair and I remembered her books. And my love for them. Just like that. Her name and her books came back to me. I smiled and rinsed my hair.  I understood. Erma had cast her vote. And it was for jersey.

Side Note: For those of you who are going to try to figure out how old I am by researching the publication dates of these books, I'll save you the trouble. On Halloween this year, I'll be 29, and not a day older!