As a parent who is also still a person, I’m very conscious of people not necessarily wanting to hear my cute kid stories.  In fact, the only person I tell them to no-holds-barred is my husband who is actually (coincidentally) also the father of my (at times) cute kid.

I was at lunch with my friend Lizzie a few weeks ago and she told me a story about her nephew. Usually these are even worse than parent’s stories —more along the line of grandparent’s stories or the inane Metropolitan Diary stories –often told in a “kid voice.”  And you feel compelled to respond with a chuckle, shaking your head, “Out of the mouths of babes!” Or worse, they are stories that the party telling is unaware show them in a creepy light, (“After I locked him in the closet for an hour he said, Mommy, I’m not a coat!”) Or they can be gross or too personal. I know you know what I’m talking about.  But Lizzie’s story was really cute and explained in a charming way.  It was simple and fast and told while we were getting up from lunch in a throwaway time-slot. Perfect. In fact, it came back to me later that night and I smiled. I told her that and she said, “I know, I am anti-cute kids stories and curate mine rigorously!”

Now, cute dog stories, on the other hand, bring ’em on!

I used to partake in an Oscar pool with my friend Barbara and her family.  Year after year, whether I’d see the films or not, I’d win. Sometimes I’d intentionally put down a crazy answer to lose, and no, I’d still win. It got ridiculous. (I did have a foolproof method for picking the documentaries –any one that had a colon and/or children in the title i.e. Tea Bags: Children of the Kettle)

Three years ago I was walking my dogs and I thought, “The only luck I ever have is in the Warnke Family Oscar Pool.” And so, I quit. If you get one shot at luck a year and you’re wasting it on potentially winning $35 and irritating your best friend’s family, it doesn’t really make good business sense to stay in. A month after I pulled out of the pool, I sold my first book. Good things continued to happen, doors opened, fortune came calling. (I think Obama won because of this, too)  I also started enjoying the Oscars again (MICKEY! MICKEY! MICKEY!) So what is it? Are the Warnke’s in some pact with the devil? I can’t say for sure, but I do know that in a Feng Shui sort of way, stopping up that hole, that leak of luck, changed my life.

So… let that be a lesson to you!

Thanks to Virginia Heffernan for bestowing an unprecedented honor on me in the New York Times Magazine this weekend.  I am pretty humbled to be called the Best Status Updater on Facebook as I hang out with a goodly number of amazing status updaters (I tip my hat to Strawberry Saroyan, Patrick Brown, Claudia Glaser-Mussen), and of course those mentioned in the article.

The question that is plaguing me is how can I profit from this?  No, really, it’s how can I use my power for good instead of evil?  No, it really is how can I profit from this….