My brother Joel came to visit just after Christmas. Not only was it my first chance to spend some quality time with my only male sibling, but it was a great reminder of how much he and I have in common.

Joel and I look the most alike. If you can get past the different hair and eye colors, we have similar facial bone structure. I know, I know, he’s a boy and I’m a girl, but look closely. It’s there.

We both have monster-long fingers (seriously, I’m 5’4″ and my fingers are longer than my husbands). But Joel beats me in the “Ugliest Thumb Category.”

And we both sing the wrong lyrics to just about everything. However, I didn’t know I had this little deficiency until after I was married.

I used to tease Joel mercilessly because I never made a lyrical snafu. But who wouldn’t make fun of a kid singing, “Stayla, Styla, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Ahh, Stayla” instead of “Staying Alive”? I mean HONESTLY. When asked, Joel said he thought “Stayla” was a woman’s name.

This little commonality was pointed out as we were driving around Houston one evening. Kelley Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone”came on the radio. Joel started singing, “Since you’ve been gone, I can NOT breathe for the first time.” I corrected him. That’s when Jamie started laughing hysterically (maybe not hysterically, but as hysterical as Jamie ever gets) and pointed out that he had, on occasion, done the same thing for me. Like…

• ACDC did not sing about “Dirty Deeds and the Thunder Chief” but about how those dirty deeds were “done dirt cheap.” If you listen to the baseline, you could totally hear how I thought the song had some Native American ties.
• No song actually talks about “a loaded-gun complex.” But that still makes more sense to me than the real lyrics to Fall Out Boy’s song “Sugar We’re Going Down.”
• And my most personal favorite, “Pour Some Shook Up on Me” from Def Leppard. By the way, T-Mobile made a commercial out of someone else messing up these very lyrics. The guy in the ad thought the lyrics were, “Pour some shook up ramen, in the age-old glove.” His girlfriend was on the phone with a librarian to get the exact wording so she could really clown him.

But Joel and I will not fret because we are not alone. There are several websites devoted to misheard lyrics, kissthisguy.com and amiright.com, to name a few. YouTube posters have also capitalized on other people’s confusion and created entire music videos singing the wrong words.

If you want to get a good laugh at someone else’s expense (and have nothing better to do), check them out.

Please don’t think that I’m vain…at least not completely, totally, utterly vain. But I just saw something on TV that made my laugh hysterically and I wanted to write it down.

And here’s the scariest part….I totally want to order a set! (I mean of the Bump Its, not the scary plastic Coneheads.) I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent backcombing my hair in attempt to get volume and have it fall flat after ten minutes. Anyone who lives in a humid climate can empathize!

Does anyone out there want to split a set with me? I’m totally dying to look like I have just been squeezed through the birth canal again.

For more information about Bump It, check out bighappiehair.com.

What does a retirement center and this Wallace Family have in common?

Our undying affection for Pat Sajak of course! The sad thing is that I’m not kidding. Jamie, Gavin, Laynie and I gather around our annoyingly large TV and watch Wheel of Fortune six nights a week. We even Tivo it so that we never miss an episode.

It all started one evening as a simple competition between husband and wife and has since turned into a year-long obsession. Jamie and I both have Wheel Watcher ID Numbers and are seriously considering getting Gavin one. We have the Wheel of Fortune computer game installed on our laptops and play competitively (Jamie vs. Me vs. Gavin). Gavin knows all the sound effects (the prize puzzle ding, the final spin bonk, the bankruptcy whistle), he cheers when a player wins, yells at them when they choose the wrong letter, and gives high fives to whichever of his parents solves the puzzle first. I secretly think it’s part of the reason he has learned all of his letters and their sounds so quickly…

And I’m totally not kidding when I say this, but Jamie and I have considered applying to play on “Couples Week” to celebrate our fifth anniversary. We have a strategy all mapped out. He’s better at choosing the letters and I’m faster at solving the puzzles. Together we would rock the Wheel right off its axis!

If we had an all cash total of 20K (which means we didn’t solve the prize puzzle, SNAP!) we would pay off our car and put the rest toward a down payment on a new house. I know, I know…how terribly responsible of us.

So I’ve made an executive decision that if we go on Wheel of Fortune and win money (and we totally would), we have to do something fun with the winnings.

Putting my Lipo dreams aside, I think we should take an awesome vacation! Jamie’s not all that interested in seeing Europe (imagine my pouty face). But I think I could convince him to go to an all-inclusive resort somewhere with a white sand beach. I know it’s not the same as fish-and-chips at Piccadilly, dancing under the Eiffel Tower, or slurping pasta in Venice.

I guess I’ll just have to make do with a hammock, sunglasses, and a pina colada (virgin of course)…maybe where they film the Corona commercials? And if we did win the prize puzzle, we would probably do that anyway.

If you had $20,000 that you HAD to spend recklessly, what would you do with it?