We moms, of course, are always on the lookout for Suitable Suitors for our daughters, and I’m wondering now about Michael Phelpsfor my younger daughter Carolyn. I mean, he seems like a nice boy — very polite and he’s nice to his mom. I’m guessing that now he’ll always have some sort of job, right? And Carolyn’s broken a few swim records in her time, too, let me tell you (hello, Athens-McMinn County YMCA), so they’d have a lot in common. But I heard that he eats a huge amount of food at every meal, so that’s a little disturbing. I mean, would Carolyn have to cook for him all the time? Hmmm….

Actually, in our family, “boyfriends” are called “bufferins,” and this is why: A few years ago, my two daughters and I were in somewhere together and Carolyn randomly said, “I need a boyfriend” and somehow I time-traveled back a couple of decades to when “aspirins” were generically called “Bufferins” because that’s all we had, so I heard “I need a Bufferin” and I immediately started searching my purse, saying, “I think I’ve got one in here somewhere,” to which statement my daughters looked at me very strangely. And, really, when was the last time I actually had a Bufferin in my purse? Do they even make Bufferin anymore? (Notice how I’m changing the subject here so you’ll stop thinking about how could I possibly confuse “Bufferin” with “boyfriend.” Did it work?!)

Best Michael Phelps joke I’ve heard (this is from Mo Rocca on National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”): “What will Michael Phelps do now? Go back to his regular job — as mayor of Atlantis.”