Perk Up! with some Latte Laughs

Something I know all too well is being the butt of a joke—intentional or not. When you grow up in a family that loves to tell tall tales, you either learn how to become part of one or how to start one yourself.

Growing up, my twin sister and I were especially good at this. When the two of us were together, we weren’t always thinking with our brains. I’ve shared before how easily we’ll run with a bad idea but let me refresh your memory with a few more stories beyond just our coffee mishaps.

One time in high school, our mom asked us to run to Walmart to grab a head of lettuce. No big deal. My sister and I jumped into our little blue Kia and headed to the store. We were in and out—quick trip. But as soon as we got home, our mom looked at the bag and said, “Girls, this isn’t right. I asked for lettuce.”

We looked at it, and immediately I knew what had happened. Still, I doubled down. “Mom, this is lettuce,” I said, even trying to keep the act going. Turns out, a head of lettuce and a head of cabbage look very similar, and we never paid attention to what we grabbed. So, of course, we had to turn right back around, go back to Walmart, and buy lettuce this time.

Can you tell which is which...I can...at least now I can!

Another time, we went into town to pick up pizza that had been ordered for the family. I’ve never been able to resist a good car piece of pizza, even if home is less than ten minutes away. In my brilliance, I ate a slice and already knew exactly what I was going to say. As soon as we got home and the top box was opened, I announced, “They forgot a piece.” No one believed me for a second—but I did try to pull a fast one.

Yes, sometimes it was intentional.

More recently, after we’d grown up quite a bit and become adults, we decided to do something special for our stepdad. We had two boxes of cake mix, and both flavors sounded great. Since we couldn’t choose, we decided to make both. But because two full-sized cakes felt like too much for just five people, we decided to cut all the ingredients in half. I mean, what could go wrong?

When you don’t want 12 cookies or muffins, you halve the ingredients, right? What we didn’t think about was that cake mix is designed specifically for the full measurements. Cutting everything in half does not work the same way—and it definitely didn’t. What came out of the oven were flat, pancake-like cakes: tough, crispy, and very questionable.

As our mom, stepdad, and my husband tried to figure out what went wrong, my sister and I played along, acting just as confused—until we finally realized our own mistake.

I’ve come to realize we still do this: hide a little detail until after the fact just to see people’s honest reactions instead of reactions based on the information we give them. My sister hosted Thanksgiving this past year and quietly swapped a few ingredients without saying a word. My husband, her husband, and I all loved it. Once we told her, she revealed what she’d changed, and we all laughed—completely unaware until then.

Sometimes these experiments actually turn out well, like Thanksgiving, or the year we had a phone-shaped cake made for our mom because she’s always on her phone, or the Man Crates our dad and stepdad had to completely destroy just to open. We always find a way to laugh—whether during the moment or after the fact.

Honestly, I think it’s because my sister and I hype each other up and encourage one another so much that we don’t realize it’s a bad idea until it’s already too late.