The problem with the Internet is that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine if someone is being sarcastic. Before I tell you how I came to this startling revelation, let me just say that if you are ever trying to determine if I'm being sarcastic, you can check the weather. If the weather guy in Pittsburgh says we are going to have crappy weather, then, yes, I'm being sarcastic. Since we have crappy weather just about every day, you know where we stand.

Anyway, I love reading Looky Daddy's blog. There's nothing like a man trying to survive staying at home with three little girls (including a set of twins) to make you appreciate how good you have it. Plus, he's funny. Like, for example, when he was writing about how one of the twins has been sick and that it was jeopardizing her attendance at the first day of preschool. He's been looking forward to that first day, oh, since they were born. Anyway, he posed the question: how long should a child be vomit-free before attending school?

In response to his question I commented,

"Dude, I took my kid on a plane when the Pediatrician said she had "A-typical Chicken Pox" and needed to be quarantined. I refused to miss my fun-filled Disney vacation, contagions be damned. Did you hear about it on the news? No? That's because nothing bad happened.

Surely the world (aka Preschool) will survive a child who, perhaps, has a touch of food poisoning or is, maybe, experimenting with her inner-Bulimic. What they don't know can't keep you from enjoying your first hours of FREEDOM. All kids at school=your Disney vacation. Now go play with Mickey already."

I know that there is a mountain of sarcasm in there (and that Looky Daddy! has the sense to figure out whether his kid is well enough to go to school or not--he's probably not going to use the comments on his blog as a formal poll and do whatever the Internet says he should do). But I don't know if there's a mountain of sarcasm in someones reply to my comment:

"Burgh Baby's Mom: No, we just didn't hear about it on the news because the three dozen people whose kids got chicken pox the following week didn't know who to blame. Now you've outed yourself you are gonna get so much hate mail.

But hey, didn't people use to pile their healthy kids into bed with the infected ones to get it all over with (that's what he relates in The Great Brain anyway)? You did them a favor."

Really, I have no idea. Sarcastic? Or not? Do I bother to tell the rest of the chicken pox story (like the fact that nobody agreed with the pediatrician in her "diagnosis", including a MIL, and we all know they are always right? or that she had already had the spots, which were confined to her back, for over a week? or that they were totally gone two days after the visit to the pediatrician's office? or that she didn't have any other symptoms? or that she had already been vaccinated against chicken pox? or that . . . you get the idea)?

I guess I'll just wait for the hate mail and see where I stand. The good news is that while the commenter may be able to figure out where we live, she doesn't know what I look like.

Smiling, that is. She doesn't know what I look like SMILING.