especially when you are not supposed to laugh. Some of my best fits of laughter have come when I was supposed to be as serious as a heart attack. Moments like this seem to occur less and less as I get older, but I had one last week and it was awesome! Reminded me of my days in Catholic school where at times it felt like THOU SHALL NOT LAUGH was the 11th commandment.
Like this one time in 8th grade. A bunch of guys I knew threw a kid in the dumpster and they were all sent to the principals office. I was innocent! I was reading my bible right next to the dumpster because the shade allowed me to see the pages better. If memory serves me correct I was reading from the book of Spartacus when all of sudden the whole group was hauled into the office. As every good warden does, the principal made us wait for her entrance, just letting us simmer in our sins. A crock pot of crooks so to speak.
Side note—if you want to live forever become a nun. The principal we were all waiting for in 1977 is a nun and still the principal as of this writing. Nuns do not die—they just just shrink until you can’t see them anymore. Then someone steps on them. It’s true—google it.
Back to the story. We’re all standing there when SHE walks in and the veins on her neck and forehead spelled out the word SCREWED in perfect catholic cursive. I was going to take a picture of it with my iPhone, but they weren’t invented yet. Well she just starts laying into all us, including the kid who took the dumpster dive—no one was spared. And she builds to her closing statement “Why–Why–WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” It was one of those rhetorical questions that really was not supposed to be answered, but someone in the crowd felt the Lord move and the knucklehead provided this response: “We had nothing else to do?” WRONG ANSWER. “Nothing else to DO?” she screamed back at us and then she literally was at a loss for words. Her mouth opened, her hands gestured, but no words came out. This was a new occurrence for her and she couldn’t handle it, so she left. Which was good timing because we all just about lost it. We had nothing better to do! Nothing better to do than bust a gut!
Back to present day. I was at the the local high school attending a presentation on how to pay for college. The presenter was going over certain scenarios in which parents were separated, divorced etc. when one kid raises his hand and asks “What if your parents are dead?” Now normally that would be a sad question, but his parents were sitting right next to him. I just lost it as the dad tore into him.
I thoroughly enjoying laughing when you are not supposed to, still to this day!
