Below are some humorous stories about Veda. Trust me, it was hard to limit them to just these few...

Veda is, of course, a beautiful woman. Like other beautiful women, all of her life she has had men telling her how pretty she is, saying nice things to her, being polite, and just complimenting her in general. I knew this going into the relationship. What I didn't know is that Veda takes all of those compliments and puts them into two buckets - ones she pays attention to and ones she doesn't. I am still not 100% clear on the distinction she makes, but I believe it has to do with how good looking the person doing the complimenting is. So, if you compliment Veda and she ignores you, don't feel bad...it just means you're ugly.

Reverse Psychology. Does this really work on anyone who is over the age of 5? Well, it does on Veda. That is the quickest way to get Veda to do something. Veda, don't stop at the store on the way home and buy me ice cream. Veda, don't buy me the new Batman movie. Veda, don't worry about cleaning the house today. If I say these things I'll be eating ice cream while watching Batman in my clean house. Well...I'll have two of those three things for sure. Anyway, it doesn't just work on small things. When we first met there was a rather large thing I told Veda I didn't want. I can't go into details, but I'll say that Alyssa was born nine months later...

One night Veda was at home by herself and had a load of clothes in the dryer. Our dryer, like most dryers, can be set to buzz every 10 minutes or so after it is done drying. Veda knows this, but when buzzing sounds started coming from the basement, in her mind it was a robber who, instead of simply coming upstairs and killing her, had gone into the basement and was "playing" with our dryer to get her to come downstairs where he would promptly kill her. So, Veda spent the night in her room with hedge clippers waiting for the inevitable. God knows where the kids were. Luckily, the robber left in the morning and our clothes were dry. Every once in a while he comes back, though, and plays with the dryer some more.

There have been two times in my life that I almost drowned. The first was when I was 12 and in a wave pool. I tried to get out while it was on and got sucked under...it was bad. The second time was when I was in my early 30's...it was worse. Veda and I were in Mexico - Puerto Vallarta to be exact - and had gone on a boat cruise to a protected island. When we arrived, we had the choice of swimming to the island - maybe 150yds - or waiting for a tender. Being healthy and a good swimmer I decided to take the swim. It being Mexico I didn't have to wear a life jacket. Veda decided to swim with me, but also decided to take a life jacket. The swim started off easily enough, but about halfway there Veda started freaking out. I aksed her if she was ok and her response was to grab me and push me under the water. I hit coral and cut my knee. So, let's review: we are both in the water; Veda has a life jacket and her head is above the water; Kevin does not have a life jacket, he is bleeding, and his head is being held under water by Veda. It turns out that on the boat ride to the island, someone said they saw a whale. They said it was very far away. I looked and just saw waves. I'm not sure anyone else saw the whale either, but if the whale was there, we were miles away from it by now. But Veda suddenly remembered the whale. And she remembered that we were now in the same water the whale was swimming in. And she wanted to get out of that water. And the only "step" around was my head. Eventually I had to throw her away from me and swim away from her. Luckily, Veda now knows that the ocean scares her.

The funniest story about Veda is really a joke she played on me when we first met. We went into a department store to buy a VCR (this is what we had before TiVos). VCRs had this "cool" feature where you could leave a message for someone on them (this is what we had before texting). So, being the type of guy I am, I left a message on the VCR in the store that said "Veda was here and she farted". Veda freaked out and said that people knew her. She was the only Veda in the area and everyone would know it was her (ok, it turns out the store clerk knew her...). Anyway, flash forward 18 years and my message on the VCR comes true, Every night in our bed, Veda is there and she farts. If only I knew the VCR was magic, I would have said Veda was bisexual or won the lottery...