A friend told me she recently experienced a dream in which she and I were having a love affair.

I can honestly say I’ve never had such a dream about her, at least none that I remember.

Seeing as how she is happily married to a really nice guy who also is a friend of mine, I didn’t ask for details. She provided none and admitted that she had no explanation for the dream.

She also told me this in front of witnesses and was chuckling while she did so, which provided me a lot of other useful information ... like, the fact that my current rating on the threat level is exactly where I suspected it was.

I told her this was quite a switch from what usually happens.

“Why is that?” she asked.

Most times, I said, it’s the woman who tells me, “In your dreams.”

Another woman I know came up to me the other day with her cell phone hanging open and showed me a picture of a teen-age girl.

“This is my baby,” she said with what sounded like pride in her voice.

Both of them are pretty, so I did the gallant thing and told her that her daughter takes after her.

“She’s an (derogatory term that ranks about 5 on a 1-to-10 scale of unprintability),” she said, then turned and ambled away.

I spluttered and reminded her that she had told me this after I said her daughter takes after her.

“I know,” she said, smiling at me over her shoulder. “But she’s still an ... .”

As she walked off, I reminded myself that will never understand them ... but my father warned me I would find that out someday. So did my uncle. I was only 11 when my grandfather died, and if he’d lived long enough, he’d probably have told me the same thing.

A day or so later, I asked the lady what her daughter thought about her.

“She thinks I’m an (same derogatory term), too!” she said with a grin.

Apparently recognizing the expression on my face as one of total befuddlement, she explained that “(the derogatory term)” is actually a term of endearment she and her daughter exchange with each other.

Aha! I said. NOW I understand. “(The derogatory term)” has actually served as a term of affection in my own family.

Dad used to tell me that nobody could say “(the derogatory term)” like one of my cousins does.

In fact, to this day, when I’m feeling playful and talking to her, I intentionally provoke her to the point where she finally says, “Oh, all right, (DEROGATORY TERM)! Are you happy now?” And I say, Yes, I am.

Dad was fond of doing the same thing to her. He used to run a World Series baseball pool for the teachers at the high school, and when she won four dollars in it, he sent her a check for $3.80 ... deducting the 20 cents postage.

He did this, knowing that a couple of days later, the phone would ring and he would answer it, to hear his niece say:

“OK, (DEROGATORY TERM)!”

My lady friend says “(derogatory term)” is frequently utilized when the time comes to get her daughter out of bed in the morning.

I told her that when my Aunt Penny was a little baby, she took to sleeping all day and staying awake all night.

Grandmother Goldsworthy was never one to tolerate foolishness from people or animals of any size or age, so she took steps that forever cured Penny of wanting to sleep all day.

This involved a washrag and a bucket of ice water, and Dad said they had to lock Great-Grandfather Goldsworthy out of the house while it was taking place.

I know all about this because my mom used to remind me of it when I didn’t want to get out of bed.

——————

The doctor recently sliced and nuked away one of the fruits of my growing up in an era when getting a suntan was supposed to be good for you.

This left a hole the size of the end of a pencil eraser on my right thigh, and I watched as he did it. This probably would gross some folks out, but it didn’t bother me, and the minor wound it left hasn’t hurt or even itched.

All was fine until I noticed that blood had seeped out around the bandage and left a stain about the size of a quarter on my pants.

Anyone who happened to be near me at the time would have heard an utterance that ranks about 7 on a 1-to-10 scale of the discouraging words one never hears when he is Home on the Range.

Leaking small amounts of blood doesn’t bother me that much. I’ve done my share of it. However, I also am aware that blood is an absolute (derogatory term that ranks about 6 on a 1-to-10 scale of unprintability) to get out of clothes, particularly when it has dried, and they are good clothes.

I Googled the subject on the Internet and found a solution that personal experience told me would work.

Soak the affected area of the fabric in cold water, then cover it liberally with ordinary table salt. Take the soaked and salted area and rub the stain against itself — you know, the knuckles-to-knuckles thing.

This makes perfect sense. When I used to hunt, we dressed our rabbits and squirrels, then soaked them overnight in salt water. This removed the blood from both outside and inside the animals.

As you rub, you can actually see the salt turning pink as it extracts the blood. Wash off the salt, repeat the process a couple of times, and the stain comes right out. Toss it into the wash and you’re good to go.

Hopefully, you will never have a use for this information ... but here it is, anyway.