Amanda Lamb: Out of the mouths of babes

The other day a pop song came on the radio that mentioned a martini.

“What is a martini?” I asked my younger daughter, curious to see if she knew the answer.

“It is alcohol,” she said, not taking her eyes off of her handheld video game.

“What are the rules about alcohol?” I continued, to see how much she knew about this topic.

“You have to be 21 to have it,” she said, again with her gaze fixed squarely on the little screen in her little hands,

“And you can’t drink and…” I coaxed, thinking that she might just know the answer to this last question.

She finally looked up from her game with a quizzical look on her face. I looked at her in the rear view mirror and could tell that she was struggling to find the right answer to my riddle.

“You can’t drink and get married,” she said triumphantly. I had to stifle my laughter, but then I pondered her answer for a moment and decided it was a pretty good one.

“I was going to say ‘drink and drive,’ but that’s a pretty good one too,” I said, reaching back to squeeze her hand at a traffic light.

I think maybe she’s onto something. It might behoove some of the Vegas wedding chapels to include this proclamation on their list of guidelines. It could save a lot of people a lot of heartache and the hassle of an annulment.

Are you listening Britney?