I was determined, though. You’ve got to make finding
funny its own special kind of treasure hunt on days when life feels too serious.
On a good day, funny will fly right into your face where you can’t miss it,
like the time I was offering a glass of grape juice to my cousin and it slipped
out of my hand. The glass landed straight down on the table in front of her,
which was a pretty good save. For the glass. But Newton’s First Law of Inertia
states that an object at rest will stay at rest unless the object is acted upon
by an unbalanced external force. I played the part of the unbalanced external
force.
See, the grape juice had been resting inside the glass
until the glass hit the table, and the effect was the same as when a kid jumps out
of a tree and onto a trampoline. The contents of that glass, twelve ounces of purple
grape juice, hit my cousin full in the face and it was several minutes before she
recovered from the shock and the rest of us stopped laughing long enough to
hand her a towel.
I actually still feel bad about this incident, but we
were both homeschooling and this was our science co-op day, so it all turned
out for the best, I think. At least I learned about gravity and my cousin learned to get her own beverages when I'm around.
See? That kind of funny catches you off guard. I
wanted to find off-guard funny today, but I think it was too hot outside. Even
planet earth was in a foul mood this afternoon, and who can blame it? Four
hours east of here, high in Arizona’s beautiful White Mountains, a friend of
mine lives in the little, scenic village of Greer. People escape to Greer for
months every summer when they find out about the weather there. “It’s raining
and 69 degrees,” my friend texted me today, “but I shouldn’t tell others that.” I always forget how lovely it is there. So hard to believe paradise is that close when there's sweat running down your back. "Yeah, you
probably ought to keep that to yourself,” I responded. “You don’t want to get
TP’d in the rain.” Four hours from here.
Which is apparently the actual physical distance between heaven and hell. I
still might go toilet paper her yard.
So, funny had gone into hiding and I had to get out and
see if I could find it. There wasn’t much in my email’s inbox to fall back on,
and I realized I was gonna have to at least take a drive around the block and
put myself in the path of good material if I wanted to squeeze out a chuckle
somehow. I decided to go wander around a Home Goods store and either look for
inspiration or discover something I suddenly couldn’t live without.
Right away I spotted an amazing table that would look
spectacular on the patio of my crazy friend’s house in Tucson. She needs this
in the worst way. It was a two-foot tall plaster sailor with a bird on his head
and an empty tray held out in one hand. Ugly as sin and a real statement piece.
The statement was, “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when I give this
to you.”
Don’t go feeling sorry for her. She torments me
mercilessly. Outdoing each other with horrible gifts is the foundation of our friendship. She once gave me a huge, painted
styrofoam hand that she decorated with fake poinsettias and a photo of herself.
It rose up out of a worn-out gift bag looking like a Halloween nightmare. She made
me open it inside Starbucks so there’d be witnesses to how depraved she is, and
when I did, two customers next to us came over and gushed about how beautiful and
unusual the present was. Later I found out she bribed them to say that stuff. I
thought they were just crazy like her, but she’s in a league of her own.
I really wanted to get that little nautical decoration
for her, but I left the store empty handed today. Home Goods’ price tag for the
tacky sailor was a hundred dollars! There is no accounting for taste, but I don’t
have to pay for it. She’ll have to buy that ugly table herself.
Just walking across the black asphalt parking lot
ruined the good mood I’d almost managed to find, and I climbed inside the oven
I call my truck, sat down on a melting leather seat, and turned on the air
conditioner full force, sucking in overheated air for a minute until the
compressor found its stride. Buckled in, I threw it in reverse, and watched in
my backup camera as a woman in a shiny, new Navigator sitting in a parking space on the
row behind me did her level best to meet me by accident right outside the Home
Goods store. In self-defense, I put my Tahoe in drive and pulled as far forward
into the empty space in front of me as I could so the woman wouldn’t succeed
and ruin my bumper. She never turned her wheels. She just kept coming at me
like I wasn’t there or maybe she assumed I was slowly pulling straight out so
she didn’t have to do some fancy maneuver like using the steering wheel to
steer.
At the last minute, she changed direction and drove
away from potential disaster, oblivious to the fact that I was anywhere close
instead of in Greer in the rain where I belonged. Mumbling to myself, I made it
out to the main street through town without further incident, only to have
another little Zippity Doo Dah try to hit me from behind again. You know, when
someone rear-ends your vehicle, it’s always seen as their fault, but that’s no
consolation when you lose your mode of transportation.
At this point, Mama had had enough. “Siri!” I yelled
above the roar of my air conditioner. “Make a note!”
“To the jerk who nearly
ran me over on Ellsworth Road and to the lady who tried her best to link
bumpers in the parking lot, better luck next time. I know it’s not very
Christian for me to hope you each get flat tires, but I’m still a work in
progress so don’t expect too much from me just yet.”
I don’t know if I found funny today or just did the
best I could with what I had, but some days are like that. If I’d had the patience
to watch the debates tonight on TV, I’m certain I’d have found plenty of rich
material there. I’ll settle for an ugly plaster table and a full glass of grape
juice, though.
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