Specchio Sister Jokes

Ok, I’ll have to let you all in on a Specchio-girls secret: we had an incredible amount of inside jokes with each other and could entertain ourselves for literally hours. This developed from growing up with long car road-trips for family vacations, annually going to an island off Maine that had no TV, internet, or even electricity! We also played off each other during church sermons, hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Specchio’s house while waiting for the yummy yummy FAMOUS Specchio spaghetti and meatballs to be prepared. In short – we were crazy and pretty creative actually. My parents never knew what we were saying, never mind our crazy characters we’d act out or jokes we’d constantly play on each other.

Two specific jokes come to mind and every time I think of them I can’t help but smile. I recently found a set of pictures Em and I took in a photo booth at the Jersey Shore and couldn’t believe I had an actually picture of these two jokes.

The first joke involved “the claw”. Emily took karate for a short while during middle school and would practice her karate moves at home. Me being the “instigator” (as my dad would always call me) would sit there and critique what she was doing. There was one particular move that I would constantly make fun of. This move consisted of Emily sticking out one arm palm-side up, and using the other to make a claw with her fingers and slide it up the palm-side up arm. I would sit there watching her and say “what would that POSSIBLY do to an opponent during a fight?!” At first, Em was defensive of the claw move and stood up for it, but after awhile it became a huge joke for both of us, and we decided that the claw move was the most dangerous thing you could do to another person if you wanted to fight them. We developed this routine with each other in which I’d look at her from across the room and point at her mouthing “you”, then pound my fist in my palm twice. She’d look at me and shrug “so what”. I’d then point at her again mouthing “you” then this time make a slit motion across my throat. She’d again shrug at me, looking like no big deal. Finally I’d point at her a third time, but this time I’d make the claw motion. She’d then act all scared and abruptly run out of the room. This usually was followed by me chasing her with lots of screaming involved, and ending with me grabbing her from behind, bear hugging her, and spinning her around in circles with us both laughing. We thought this whole act was hilarious, and we’d constantly act it out around others who were completely clueless. One time while we were staying at a hotel with my family, she was the one threatening me with the claw and I went to run away and ran straight into a closed hotel room door that wasn’t ours. We laughed about this for YEARS….

The other joke involved a character that Emily created. She would pretend she was this slimy/gross old man and make this face that involved her bottom lip being stuck out and being pulled to one side. She’d then in this deep, man-like voice say the same line over and over again – “I can dream, can’t I??? What else am I livin’ for?!” I couldn’t get over this character she’d do. Every time she did it I’d shriek “EWWWWWWW!” and we’d both laugh our heads off. I used to try to do the character too, but could never do it quite as grossly as Em could!

I’ll never forget all our jokes we had with each other, and felt the need to share since (with the exception of the Pappas girls) no one ever knew what the hell we were doing when we were just sitting around laughing hysterically making faces and voices to each other…. I miss those times so much and will cherish them forever. Love you lil WO!