Happy Birthday, Erma!

Here's a role model for our times:

It's the birthday of columnist and humorist Erma Bombeck, (books by this author) born in Dayton, Ohio (1927). She got a job at the Dayton Journal-Herald writing obituaries and features for the women's page, but when she married a sportswriter there she chose to quit her job and stay home with the kids. She spent a decade as a fulltime mother, and then in 1964 she decided she had to start writing again or she would go crazy. She said, "I was thirty-seven, too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security, and too tired for an affair."

Within a few years, she was one of the most popular humor columnists in America. She went on to publish many books, including Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession (1983) and Family: The Ties That Bind ... and Gag! (1987).

She wrote, "My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?"

(From the Writer's Almanac, which tells me it's also Chuck Palahniuk's birthday, but I have nothing to say about that.)