I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day because that means it's going to be up all night.
Sometimes when I’m in a crowded restaurant I get this overwhelming urge to stand up and yell, “I am not background for your life!”
~Comedian Steven Wright
Frankly, if someone does not have a good sense of humor, I really don’t care to be around them. I love humor, I love to laugh. I love watching comedies, both TV and movies. Having inherited my Dad’s love for the strange and unusual, I especially love off-the-wall, quirky humor—which does not thrill my wife at all. I watched the Ben Stiller movie, Dodge Ball, the other night for what?—the 1oth time?—and still laughed myself silly. “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.” How can that not be funny? I can watch The Big Bang Theory over and over and over. And yes, I’m one of those who thinks that Napoleon Dynamite is sheer comedy genius.
During the growing up, formative years of my life, humor was one of the essential keys to my survival. I don’t mean physical survival, but emotional survival. The odd thing is that the man who made our lives a daily hell also had a great sense of humor, and even though I grew up hating his guts, I can also look back fondly at some uproarious times when we were laughing so hard we were both in tears.
It always made me wonder if Hitler had a sense of humor.
At times the humor was shared with Bud, my stepfather; other times it was at his expense, sort of a humorous revenge. My favorite was when I was 13 years of age. It was summer, and I’d been secretly angry at him for over a month, because on my birthday, he told me that we did not have enough money for a present for me—but we had the money that day to drive to Newport (over 30 miles away) for a case of beer and a bottle of whiskey. My “present” was all the Mountain Dews I could drink there and back. I was seething underneath over this. On the 4th of July I got my revenge. We were at the Heber Springs Lake, and the place was packed. Bud suggested we have a swimming contest, and he pointed off in the distance to our goal. But after a few strokes, I noticed that Bud had stopped swimming. I looked back and saw him parting the surface of the water with his hands, trying to peer down into the water. I went over to him and asked what he was doing. He made a “shushing” motion, finger to his mouth, and quietly said, “My uppers fell out. I want you to go down and see if you can find them. But be quiet about it.” I went down and immediately found his dentures lying on the bottom. But I thought to myself, This is too good to pass up. False teeth in my hand, I kicked out and swam under water as far as I could. Then I came up out of the water, holding his uppers high above my head and yelled as loudly as I could, “Found your teeth, Dad!” Like I said, the lake was crowded, and everyone around us cracked up laughing. My Mom and my sister were laughing so hard I thought they were going to fall off the picnic table. As for Bud, he was so embarrassed he almost turned purple. I knew I would pay for it. I was grounded for a week. It was worth it.
I could tell you story after story of hilarious times together, times when were egging each other on, and times when he was the butt of my practical jokes. I used to love to hide his pillow in the fridge. But he loved to laugh. Friday nights Mom would be working the 3 to 11 shift at Gray’s Hospital, my sister would be on a date, and Bud and I would sit in front of the TV watching Hogan’s Heroes and F Troop, eating potato chips and French Onion dip, drinking Pepsi’s and laughing. They were our best times together, and frankly, for me it made Bud someone that I could not totally hate, but could actually be fond of at times.
Humor became my shield. Not only was it one of my coping mechanisms, but unfortunately it also became something that I hid behind, well into my adult years. Showing honest emotions was too dangerous in our house, so I hid behind humor. As an adult, rather than saying what I really felt, I would make a joke. Making the other person laugh was my way of holding them off at arm’s length, especially if they were “invading my emotional space.” Needless to say, I had problems with my temper. I would “stuff” my emotions, hiding behind a smile and a witty remark, until the dam would burst, and it would not be pretty.
I’m still learning how to publicly express honest emotions, and it is still hard for me.
Well okay, like everything else, humor can be taken too far, can be used inappropriately. But still, for me, the journey would not be worth the trip if we couldn’t laugh so hard we almost wet ourselves at times. Studies are showing that there is true, healing power in laughter. One time I attended a laughter group. They started the meeting by standing around in a circle and laughing. Yes, it was faked, but they knew that there is healing power in even faked laughter—that’s how powerful it is.
Just recently I “worked a death” (as we call it in the chaplain profession) at a hospital. The patient was medi-flighted in, rushed to emergency surgery, and died on the table. I was with his shocked, grieving widow and her sisters. Other family began to arrive. Lots of tears, lots of hugging, lots of “I can’t believe it,” and expressions of grief. At one point I was standing outside the consultation room, giving the family some private time, and heard uproarious laughter. I don’t know what it was about, but I knew it was appropriate. Sometimes something is so shocking, so rocks your world, that some humor is absolutely necessary, or you would lose your mind.
Laughter reminds us that not only will life go on, but that it is going on even at that moment.
My favorite times in life are laughing with my wife and daughter. My wife doesn’t laugh easily. I can be cracking up during The Big Bang Theory and she is sitting there with a perfectly straight face, and I wonder what on earth is wrong with her. But when she does laugh, it’s beautiful. It’s musical, and I love it. My daughter laughs as easily as I do, and it’s a wonderful laugh. Her eyes light up.
Personally, I think God has a fantastic since of humor. I mean, have you ever seen an Emu? God must have been cracking up laughing while He was creating that creature. I’ve always pictured Jesus sitting around the campfire with His disciples, all of them laughing so hard they were bent over, holding their stomachs. Honestly, I think at times Jesus was a real hoot to be around.
Okay, let me end this with one of my favorite humorous moments. My mother-in-law was as conservative and straight-laced as they come, and I loved to make her laugh. It gave me such delight. One Thanksgiving, she asked me to lift a completely thawed turkey out of the sink and set in on the kitchen counter. She was standing next to me as I did this, and she asked, “You don’t mind the feel of a thawed turkey, do you?” I smiled and said, “Naw! I used to date a girl that felt like this.” Suddenly, I heard this snorting. I turned, and there was my mother-in-law, on her knees in front of the sink, laughing so hard she was snorting and tears were coming out of her eyes. In all the years I knew Betty, I’d never witnessed her laughing so hard. She could hardly catch her breath. It was so unexpected and so endearing that it had me cracking up with her. It is one of my most cherished moments with my mother-in-law.
The journey of life must be filled with laughter along the way, or it isn’t worth the trip.
Your Fellow Traveler,
~Steve
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