Life Amuses Me
Life amuses me. Literally! It sometimes feels like the world was created just to make me giggle. “And in the beginning, God created …. Humor!” Genesis — as written by me. Don’t worry — if God was gonna smite me, it would have happened a long time ago….when I suggested communion would be more efficient (and sanitary) if they used Pez dispensers for the host. Gasp if you will, but I believe humor is one of God’s gifts. I feel sorry for the people who seem to have no sense of humor — how awful must their lives be?
I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut sometimes. Okay — Most of the time. Some days I feel like I am on a stage with the audience playing the straight man — feeding me lines that just beg for a snappy comeback. For example, a customer once asked me “where would I go to get a letter from the bank?” That just begged for a sarcastic answer! But I held my tongue. On another occasion, a man told me he couldn’t make corrections to a form we had faxed him because he no longer had the paper. He had “sent it to us,” he explained. Thinking he had put it in an envelope, I asked when he had mailed it. He said no — he had faxed it back to us. I said, “but you don’t have the form still?” I hope I didn’t sound rude — I was truly baffled by his answer! My mind immediately raced off on a tangent, picturing “Mission Impossible” type fax machines that would destroy the paper as soon as it had been faxed.
I am usually pretty adept at responding to absurdity. In fact, I have often been complimented by supervisors, for my kindness and tact. Another example…. I was working at a computer store my husband and I owned, when a woman came in with a laptop she needed to have repaired. She explained that the mouse roller ball wasn’t working well. On advice from a friend, she had put Karo syrup under the trackball. Seriously! Karo syrup!
“Was it a Good friend?” I had to ask. I really thought the woman must have been joking. But she said yes, it was a good friend. “Huh”, I replied, and went on to suggest that “you should never put food products in your computer.” My husband was strangely absent during this whole conversation. I learned later that he had been hiding in the back room where the woman wouldn’t see him laughing! When she had gone, he came out and told me “that was a nice way to put it.”
I do try to be nice. But I’m only human. And I may slip. Like when a man walked into a gas station where I worked when I was much younger. He said, “I need you to call me a taxi.” And I said — you guessed it — “Okay — you’re a taxi!”
That was the first of many, Many times that I would be reminded — not everyone has a sense of humor.
