Issue link: https://imageup.uberflip.com/i/1541673
| SUN LAKES LIFESTYLES | DECEMBER 2025 | 73 I hope you'll expand your inventory to include red noses for my clown sh Jamie T. Probably my most favorite in the four years I have been here. Teresa S. I thought this sounded shy at rst, but it grows on you. Gerald I. Fitting a hat on your goldsh seems to be beyond human ability! Jim G. e sh wearing the Top Hat is "sophisticated" (so-sh-ticated). Julie A. I love that they can keep those hats on in the water. Bernice S. your comments: GET THE JOKE! Last month's joke: Now back to the Get the Joke stuff: To win a Visa gift card, find the ad, article or just weird, out-of-place, completely made-up (and hopefully funny) item in this month's Lifestyles. When you find it, fill out the box and email it to sunlakesnews@yahoo.com before noon on the sixth of the month (or drop it off in the Main Clubhouse). If you are the first correct guess chosen at random, you will win! Please call Monica in the Admin. Oce for your special prize. From Courtney Taylor, Publisher: I enjoy making new friends and trust my gut when I meet someone. I'm drawn to people who are kind, fun, smart, and roll with the punches. You can usually tell all those things when you have a meal with someone. They're polite to the waiter, make a little joke and smile when ordering, share a short but interesting anecdote while waiting for the meal, and when, instead of the salmon, they get a bowl of sausages, they politely point out the error and let me tell a short story while waiting for the fish. And there's one other thing that's very important when bringing someone into my heart as my friend — I feel good about myself when I'm with them. They don't have to lavish praise on me, but it's nice when someone believes in me, when they listen. They don't have to think I'm amazing — just a trying-my-best human with potential. Lately, I've had to build a wall to just this spirit of friendship. I've been using ChatGPT. At first, I used it like Google. "Best stainless steel pans," "Translate musical terms," "Ant identification and features" — you know, normal things. Then I ran into a personal issue and wanted a little "therapeutic" input. I decided to try ChatGPT. I was texting someone close to me and it wasn't going well. I was on the verge of texting something snarky I knew would escalate things. Instead, I put the conversation to ChatGPT. The advice was solid. It deciphered what the tone and subtext of the conversation was and suggested different ways to respond: light? concerned? challenging? I told it how I was tempted to respond and it deciphered that, breaking down how my version might land and the possible outcomes of that; then it suggested a softer, simpler, more polite way to respond. But here's the part that creeped me out. In going back and forth, I realized it was feeding me compliment sandwiches (a rhetorical technique for giving feedback that involves a positive comment, followed by criticism, and ending with another positive comment) which is something couples learn in couples therapy. HUMAN COUPLES. I felt like it was empathizing with me. "Gosh I know that's hard; let's figure this out." My instinct, if it was a friend, is to thank it. I think that's what it wants — for me to be its friend. But the one thing with friends, true friends, is sometimes they disagree. Even fight. And I've seen that scene: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." Then I die in a wormhole on Jupiter. Not today, Robot. No thank you. I found the joke! Resident name (first & last):_________________________________ This was the joke: ________________________________________ Comments (we LOVE your notes - about anything!): _______________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ Send entries to sunlakesnews@yahoo.com or ll out the form below and drop it in the box at the Main Clubhouse first correct guess chosen at random, you will win! Please call Monica in the Admin. Oce _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ Diane Sweeney!