So you’ve met a cynic. You find him insufferable, but you can’t avoid him because your best friend thinks he’s “kinda cute in an ugly way.” Fear not, for we have supplied a fool-proof method to cure him of his prickly outlook on life.

Today’s comic opens with a joke that I like to tell my kids. And because the oldest are 7- and 5-years-old, this is exactly the kind of humor they enjoy. (I have to warn them not to repeat these sorts of jokes at school. While I’m sure they’d be a hit among their friends, I don’t want to face the inevitable backlash when teachers and parents find out I’m the source of their material).

Journalist #1: I’m here at the royal wedding of King Henry XIII and Catherine of Parr. Your highness, it’s an honor to talk to you at this beautiful affair.

King Henry: Thank you, I’m glad you could make it. Did you have some questions for your publication?

Journalist #1: I indeed did, I’ll rattle through them real quick.

King Henry: Sounds good.

Journalist #1: So this is your sixth wedding, correct?

King Henry: Yes, this time I’ve found love for real.

Journalist #1: Do you really believe that?

And to think Laura and Apsara have been doing this the entire time!

n 2003, I accidentally dated an alcoholic. He came as an accessory on my Prius. I got to know handsome Johnny O. (not his whole name) while I awaited the delivery he promised in four days. And during the four weeks I was dropping in on the dealership to check on my anticipated Prius, he began courting me in a car man kind of way, demonstrating how his smart key could open my vehicle without even touching it, showing me how to change the oil, change a tire, hot wire a car, skills I’d never use, but I liked the way he was teaching me. He would worry, he said, if I were abandoned along a roadside somewhere: fearful, cheerless, Johnny O.-less. This man rolled the odometer back on my feminism thirty years. Single and celibate, I suddenly got hormonal, helpless and girly.