What my teachers called "chatty" my parents defined as the "gift of gab." I've been told I could befriend a wall. My husband doesn't comment but, then again, he's outnumbered 4 to 1 and doesn't get much air time.

That I majored in English is telling. As a student I could produce lengthy, grammatically savvy papers of very little substance. Once I wrote an entire term paper on the first line of Moby Dick: "Call me Ishmael." A B+ thrilled me since I have yet to read beyond that point. Ironically, Melville is simply too wordy for me.

Nevertheless brevity is an art I admire. It's the self-control that quits while ahead, leaves people wanting more and prevents one from saying too much too often. It's what defines people as being "of few words" which makes ears perk whenever they finally spit something out. As my mom says, "Still waters run deep."

Legend has is that Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in six words. He came up with this: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

And that inspired Smith Online Magazine to solicit six word autobiographies from texters and celebrities alike. The end result was "Not Quite What I was Planning " a perfect little book for the bathroom or break room, or anywhere you might not have time to read a whole paragraph.

It's full of intriguing vignettes such as: "Couldn't cope so I wrote songs," by Aimee Mann and "Inside suburban mom beats urban heart," by Julie Goss. The title of the book was written in two minutes by a hairdresser in Minnesota. I guess this brevity thing comes easily for some.

So I gave it a go. I reached deep within myself my memories, emotions, experiences and knowledge to extract a concise summary of my purpose on this planet. And here it is: "Wipes bottoms, counters, noses and tears."

Before you think I've just marketed myself as a human hanky or domesticated wet wipe, and at the risk of being windy, let me explain.

As a young adult I concentrated on "finding my way." The questions I asked myself were the usual: "What do I want to do with my life? With whom do I want to spend it? Where do I see myself in five years?"

But five years into my marriage, as I was emerging from good, heavy drugs to meet our first daughter, I stopped asking such silly questions. And, though I hope more, dream more and pray more now than ever before, I've since discovered the liberating truth that nothing's beneath me. Nor is there anything I wouldn't do for my family. Hence bottoms.

As the children piled up so have the laundry and the dishes. My husband and I have learned each other's areas of strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, he rarely cleans the kitchen (he doesn't do counters) and I am absolved from painting, working in the yard or caring for the van I take for granted.

Knowing that I panic when the kids are sick (which usually occurs at 2 a.m.), he sleeps nearest the door so he can be first on the scene while I gain composure. As we wipe up life's little messes he smoothes my brow and tells me everything will be OK. So far he has been right.

The tears I wipe are often the kids' but sometimes my own. When they are sad and angry in nature, wiping them away is like pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and getting back on that horsy. When they are brought on by hysterical laughter we just let them roll down our cheeks.

My autobiography could just as easily be the biography of my family because I don't know where I end and they begin. It doesn't matter.

But this I do know: Our shoes are worn and, consequently, there are stories to tell. And I can't be brief because life's short enough as it is.