When I wrote for the newspaper some time ago it was a cinch. I was writing about my four very young children. Anyone can write funny stuff about that age children. I mean you never have writer’s block. You wake up laughing and you don’t stop till you go to bed. (Or crying, whatever.)

But these same kids are teenagers and young adults now and nothing they do is funny…not even remotely so…. unless you have a warped sense of humor, which I fortunately have.

Call me crazy but I do think its funny when your daughter tells you she smokes “light” cigarettes because they are less fattening. I do not lie, she really said this. Of course when she said it she was much younger. I’m embarrassed to say how young because then you will know how old she was when she started smoking. Let’s just say she was old enough to look up cigarettes in a calorie counter book.

I knew she and some of her friends were experimenting with smoking but since I had done the same thing at that age I could only hope she would come to her senses.

To my relief she informed me that she and her best friend were going to quit smoking. Every week or so I would ask her if she still was not smoking and she would reply in the affirmative. Her brothers would try to convince me that she was lying to me but I turned a deaf ear to them. It’s the old adage, “you hear what you want to hear”.

If there is one true talent this child has it is convincing others of the truth of untruthful happenings. In other words she is one darn good liar. I know this sounds terrible to say about one’s own flesh and blood but my mother said the same thing about me.

Her talent became truly evident one freezing December morning as I was returning from my morning walk. I heard my daughter’s car starting and I thought I’d jump out from behind some bushes and surprise her.

Well, I surprised her all right. She was sitting in her car with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. I guess that was my fault for not teaching her proper cigarette etiquette. I almost felt sorry for her as I walked to the car. To get caught red-handed in a bald-faced lie! Take it from someone who’s been there, there is nothing worse.

As I approached the car she rolled down the window, looking at me with those pathetic, she’s gonna kill me eyes.

“Mom,” she said sheepishly, “I’m just trying to keep warm.”

I swear she said that. She was just trying to keep warm.

Lord, I hope the colleges she’s applied to don’t read this.