Potato

Pronounced poe-tay-toe in my house, the word can't help but make me smile.

It's the punch line from the first joke my wife ever told me, back when she was trying to woo me with humor. The joke would be politically incorrect now but let's just say that it ended with a light-haired woman disguising herself and making the sound of a potato to evade the police.

It's also the nickname of the bestest cat ever to come into my life. His actual name was Jericho, but over the years he became known as Bud, then Spud-Bud, then just Spud, and finally Potato. Like a potato, you'd never associate him with being the brightest bulb, and we often equated him to "that uncle" we all have who ate a lot of paste as a child. But he loved hard and could remedy any bad day.

Plus French fries come from potatoes...enough said?