Match Up Erma Bombeck Quotes Trivia Quiz

Answer: Who waved off the dessert cart

Erma Bombeck (nee Fiste) was born in Ohio on 21 February, 1927. She was an excellent student at school, and particularly enjoyed reading books that strongly featured humour, and humour would be a hallmark of her own works in later life. Erma wrote a total of thirteen books and thousands of newspaper columns during her relatively short life, until she passed away as a result of complications from a kidney transplant on 22 April, 1996, at the age of 69. All the quotes used in this quiz come from her books and columns.

Erma also said "Have you any idea how many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen? Three. It takes one to say 'What light?' and two more to say 'I didn't turn it on'."

Answer: You're going to get it anyway

Erma's first ongoing experience with writing humorous articles came in 1940 at her Junior High School, where, at the age of thirteen, she began contributing regularly to the school newsletter, "The Owl". Two years later when she entered Parker Vocational High School, she also contributed regularly to their newsletters, mixing humour into her more serious columns. In addition to this, she was, by 1942, working as a copygirl at the Dayton Herald newspaper as well. Within two years of her employment there, she was being given minor journalistic assignments. Her first serious interview was with Shirley Temple, and it was such a success that the interview column became a regular feature on the paper.

Erma also said "When humor goes, there goes civilization".

Answer: Show your dreams to someone else

Enrolling at the Ohio University in 1946, Erma failed to find work to pay for her fees, and was forced to leave after one semester when the money she had saved from her newspaper work ran out. After subsequently finding work at a department store where she wrote comical articles for their newsletter, Erma worked at two other jobs at the same time to pay for her next attempt at University. She later enrolled at the Dayton University, where she graduated in 1949 with an English degree. She also married Bill Bombeck that year.

Erma also said "In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet".

Answer: And not be a child

After marrying educator and World War II veteran, Bill Bombeck in 1949, Erma was eventually informed by her doctor that she couldn't have children, so she and Bill adopted their daughter, Betsy, in 1953. As is often the case, Erma then promptly fell pregnant and gave birth to two sons over the next couple of years. It was during this period, and for the following ten years (1954-64), that she gave up her career as a journalist to devote herself to becoming a full time wife and mother. Many of her gems of wisdom have come down to us from this part of her life.

Erma also said "A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween".

Answer: Never gets you anywhere

1964 saw Erma returning to her writing. She commenced this period of her life by writing a weekly column for a local paper which paid her the grand sum of $3 each time. Within a year, as her reputation began to grow, another paper approached her to write two humour based weekly columns as well and paid her $50 for her work. That was quite a comfortable sum in those days. Within THREE weeks of writing those columns, they went into national syndication (36 papers) under the title of her now famous "At Wit's Ends". Suddenly her career took off with a bang. Her columns began to go nation wide; she was invited to give lectures in cities all over the country; she became a regular guest artist on a radio show; and the publishing firm Doubleday compiled her columns and published them in a book called - what else - "At Wit's End".

Erma also said "A child needs your love most when he deserves it least".

Answer: Whose office plants have died

1969 saw 500 newspapers throughout the United States publishing Erma's "At Wit's End" column, and within ten more year, this number had risen to 900 papers. During this period of her life, she was also writing regular columns for six different popular magazines as well, including the famous "Reader's Digest".

Erma also said "The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one". We can all identify with that!

Answer: Never belongs to anyone

1976 saw the publication of another of Erma's most popular books, a best seller in fact, in "The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank". 1978 rolled around with publication of her fifth book "If Life Is A Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing In The Pits". This was followed up, in 1979, by "Aunt Erma's Cope Book".

Erma also gave us the really heart warming quote of "Giving birth is little more than a set of muscular contractions granting passage of a child. Then the mother is born".

Answer: With a white carpet is one of them

In 1975, Erma was invited by the producers of the television show "Good Morning America" to do a series of commentaries on the show. This was such a success that, for the next eleven years, she was also doing comedy segments and important interviews as well. At the same time she was involved with numerous other writing projects and television productions. This was followed by a short attempt at her own sitcom known as "Maggie" but when it proved to be unsuccessful, she realised she was just attempting too much at once, and declined all further offers to appear in sitcoms.

Erma also said "My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint".

Answer: Flunked human anatomy

When Erma became involved in the Presidential Advisory Committee for Women in 1978, with a particular focus on the Equal Rights Amendment, she was, unbelievably, castigated by conservatives. Some stores even removed her very popular books as a result. Oh let's keep women chained to the kitchen stove by all means. This amendment had been proposed back in 1972, and Congress had stipulated at the time that it needed seven years for ratification and three quarters of the states to pass. Thirty-five states initially ratified, which was not enough, but of those thirty-five, four of them rescinded before the deadline. Erma was bitterly disappointed. Some of the ridiculous arguments against this process included (from a female conservative activist if you please) that it "would lead to women being drafted by the military and to public unisex bathrooms".

Erma also said "Housework, if it is done properly, can cause brain damage".

Answer: He should be declared legally dead

When Erma was twenty, she had been diagnosed with a genetic, incurable, polycystic kidney disease. She kept this to herself for most of her adult life, enduring the constant daily dialysis she had to endure stoically, and finding an outlet for her emotions in humour. She also faced and conquered her breast cancer and a mastectomy in the same manner. After having being on the waiting list for a kidney transplant for years, she finally allowed her public into this private area of her life in 1993 and released details of her illness when one kidney had to be removed and the other one was barely functioning. At the beginning of 1996, the long awaited kidney transplant finally took place, but, alas, it was too late by then. She died nineteen days later from complications of the surgery.

Erma also said "If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it". Erma Bombeck, who gave the gift of laughter to millions of people all her life, did just that.