When it came time to write the Introduction to our book, What I Learned About Life When My Husband Got Fired!, Red, unsurprisingly, went on (and on and on …) for pages with her usual blah-blah-blah. Black, on the other hand, cut to the chase and provided the book designer with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Little did we know that comparison chart would take on a life of its own after the book was launched. Not only does it capture our extreme differences in a visual and highly efficient way, but the chart has been the source of lively conversation by readers, many of whom started describing themselves (and even family and friends) as being more Red-like or Black-like.

But perhaps nothing surprised us more than the day Red's oldest daughter came home from high school with an "inventory update" about our book. (The story of how our book became a textbook can be found here.) She had been helping out in the front office and was asked to do an inventory of textbooks, and was less-than-thrilled when led to a storage room full of books. However, her mood improved when she saw stacks of our book, and she was amused as she started reviewing the condition of each book. Not that she was condoning how the students treated the books, but she discovered that many of the cartoons at the beginning of each chapter had been torn out as "keepsakes" by students, as well as the comparison chart!

Table as of April 2004What I Learned About Life When My Husband Got Fired!