Quote

Everyone I talked to was a recording-the bank, the elevator, your office, the school, a wrong number. You used to be able to call a wrong number and get a person.

Erma Bombeck

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Erma Bombeck
Age: 69 †
Born: 1927
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: April 22
Column Author
Journalist
Writer
Bellbrook
Ohio
Erma Louise Bombeck
Persons
Number
Elevator
Able
Office
Elevators
Person
Numbers
Telephones
Call
Recording
Wrong
Talked
Everyone
Bank
School
Humorous
Used
Phones

More quotes by Erma Bombeck

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I don't know when pepper mills in a restaurant got to be right behind frankincense and myrrh in prominence. It used to be in a little jar that sat next to the salt on the table and everyone passed it around, sneezed, and it was no big deal.
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Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.
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My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
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The art of never making a mistake is crucial to motherhood. To be effective and to gain the respect she needs to function, a mother must have her children believe she has never engaged in sex, never made a bad decision, never caused her own mother a moment's anxiety, and was never a child.
Erma Bombeck
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Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put 'I love Mom' on the license plate.
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When they told me I needed a mastectomy, I thought of the thousands of luncheons and dinners I had attended where they slapped a name tag on my left bosom. I always smiled and said, 'Now, what shall we name the other one?' That would no longer be a problem.
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Know the difference between success and fame. Success is Mother Teresa. Fame is Madonna.
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In the South Pacific, because of their size, mosquitoes are required to file flight plans.
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Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip.
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My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.
Erma Bombeck
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If compliments were food, I'd have starved to death 28 years ago.
Erma Bombeck
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House guests should be regarded as perishables: Leave them out too long and they go bad.
Erma Bombeck
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Kids are without a doubt the most suspicious diners in the world. They will eat mud (raw or baked) rocks, paste, crayons, ball-point pens, moving goldfish, cigarette butts, and cat food. Try to coax a little beef stew into their mouths and they look at you like a puppy when you stand over him with the Sunday paper rolled up.
Erma Bombeck
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Mother's words of wisdom: Answer me! Don't talk with food in your mouth!
Erma Bombeck
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All of a sudden, I feel very old and very tired. Maybe when I get to California, the smog, brush fires, floods, and earthquakes will cheer me up.
Erma Bombeck
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With boys you always know where you stand. Right in the path of a hurricane. It's all there. The fruit flies hovering over their waste can, the hamster trying to escape to cleaner air, the bedrooms decorated in Early Bus Station Restroom.
Erma Bombeck
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If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it.
Erma Bombeck
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How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?
Erma Bombeck
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With all the precautions and risks that accompany sex today, it sounds about as much fun as walking through a minefield.
Erma Bombeck
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I'm real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women's movement for a long time know that we've talked a good game of go out and fulfill your dreams and be everything you were meant to be. But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren.
Erma Bombeck