You Gotta Laugh...Seriously!

 

Anybody who knows me or is even just around me for  five minutes knows I'm crazy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

I like being a goofball.

I can find something to laugh at, at any given point in time, about nothing or about the direst of situations. Trust me, it makes you feel better in the long run. I can't begin to count how many church services, weddings, funerals, award ceremonies, meetings or important appointments I have found myself so tickled about something that I can't stop laughing. The harder I try and stop, the more I want to giggle. Especially if I am with my sister.

I remember a funeral years and years ago, probably twenty, that my sister and I were sitting together at a funeral for a former classmates parent. My sister always gets nervous because she has a terrible memory but absolutely everyone remembers her and comes up to speak, with hand extended and calling her by name. My job as younger sister (who both my siblings call Rain Woman) is to lean over nonchalantly and whisper their name in her ear and maybe a tidbit about where she knew them from. I still remember a lot of childhood friends' telephone numbers or addresses, what kind of car their parents drove and what their pets names were. I remember all our teachers and all our parents' friends, going back to the early sixties.

It's a gift.

I am Rain Woman.

So any way, we were sitting at this funeral, and believe it or not, we got there early and sat down. People began walking in and I would tell my sister who every one was, as they headed in our direction to speak with us. (that's why we try and get there last minute)

I had everyone pegged correctly with my secret whisperings in her ear and made my sister look like she had just seen them last week at the store. Trust me, she doesn't even remember what she bought at the store last week.

So out of the blue this old codger with faded jeans and a rather large belt buckle appeared at the back of the church. He had long, I mean LONG hair, flowing like gray wire and a beard almost down to his stars and bars belt buckle on his faded Wrangler jeans. He was also wearing (of course) dark glasses and cowboy boots. We grew up way down south (in the land of cotton) if you get my drift. #smh

 My sister seemed nervous as he came in our direction to sit behind us. She asked, with her hand in front of her mouth, "Who is that?"

I didn't miss a beat and whispered (with fake sincerity) "He's one of the lead singers in ZZ Top."

We laughed the entire funeral.  We would get ourselves together, but if one of us looked at the other one, we fell apart all over again. I don't think anyone noticed us and thank goodness we'd sat in the back and were the first ones to leave. I'm glad we didn't sign the book.

Going somewhere solemn with my brother is even worse. If all three of us are together, it's a lost cause.

We lost our mother in 1977 and our father in 2002.

In hindsight they both may have possibly died of embarrassment.

We're a lot.

Yeah, I'm nuts. But so are they.

I remember the time my sister said one of her flight attendant friends said to her on a work trip, "Did I see a picture on Facebook of your sister on a dog bed with a toy bone in her mouth?"

My sister just said yes.

 No need to try and explain me.

The similarity between above and below is uncanny.

I'm a legend in my own tiny mind.

At least my brother and sister are a lot smarter than me and have gone lot further in life, career wise... while I slung plates around for a living.

(and I don't mean spinning them on a long stick)

They have been awesome to be able and fall back on, and have always been there for me.

I'm not sure if they really love me, as much as just feel sorry for me, but I'll take it either way I can get it.

My sister gave me this card a few years ago. You know how you'll keep a card someone gives you for a few weeks, maybe shuffling it from the letter rack to a junk drawer and finally end using it to jot a number down on and eventually throw it away after several months?

Not me.

 If someone gives me something I really relate to or love, no matter how small or insignificant, I'll keep it.

Forever.

This card my sister gave me one birthday, years ago is one of those things.

 I still have it today, and will still have it when they clean out my locker at the insane asylum for old peeps nobody can tolerate, as I sit in a chair petting a fake battery operated dog. (I'm not big on cats)

On the inside it simply read:

 ''There's you, and then there's everybody else. Happy Birthday, you."

TOUCHE'

I think Jimmy Buffet sums me up best...

"It's these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Nothing remains quite the same

With all of our running and all of our cunning

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane."

So I'll just sashay my crazy little self on down the road of life, laughing as much as I can, for as long as I can. Crying's not near as much fun.

Till next time,

COTTON