ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Gotta Laugh!

Given it is the time of year when we report tragic accidents both on the farm and on the highways, it is refreshing to lighten up the stories with chance accidents that make you laugh your socks off. I use the word accident because there is no chance in the world you could ever script these things to happen…never.

I was pumping gas in the fliver the other day and right beside the service station (now there’s an oxymoron if I heard one) was a pizza shop. The busy station is at an intersection of course and as the light turned, I heard a vroom-vroom from a little beater that has the name of the pizza shop on top like a little taxi sign. Also on top of the beater were two bright red insulated bags for keeping delivered pizzas warm. I could see trouble coming shortly. The car rounded the corner in a rush only fire trucks and ambulances make and unfortunately for the pizza bags on the roof top, they did not round the corner. They flew threw the air, they burst open when they hit the asphalt and you guessed it, pizza road kill. The folks pumping gas started rolling on the ground in laughter, especially when the pizza cook heard us laughing at the mishap and he bounded out
of the take-out, apron and all out to the street to pick up what was left of his pizza bags and the mozzarella road kill. Gave new meaning to ‘thin crust’.

Stop me if you heard this one. In my other life, my better 7/8ths and I, plus a little Jack Russell Terrier used to travel the country side going to 1812 re-enactments. From Marian, Indiana to Fort York in Hogtown, we did them all. Our outfits were correct for the time period, bone buttons, linen and cotton fabrics, leather boots, short breeches, straw planter’s hat, walking stick and haversack. My wife and I were camp cooks so I was always around a campfire which left me smelling like I had just put out a forest fire and I was blackened by the grime for authenticity. We looked a sight. Now, after a hard day on the re-enactment trail, we would sometimes sneak into the local trading post. This one was called TJ Maxx in Downriver Detroit. I minded the dog outside the store while Mrs. J cased the joint.

It was a bright and hot summer day so I was wearing my nonperiod correct sunglasses. The dog was politely heeled beside me. After about 20 minutes, this well-dressed gentleman got out of his big long Cadillac to go into TJ Maxx’s. He kept me in his range of vision but because I was wearing sun glasses, he did not know I was watching him. Without any hesitation, the welldressed man reached into his pocket, pulled out some coins and said, “Say pal, would a quarter help you out?”

I burst out laughing and he hardly knew how to respond. When I told him I was not blind and the terrier was not a seeing eye dog, he felt so sheepish, I was tempted to put the sunglasses back on and take his quarter.

Some say bats fly with great accuracy and do not look for women’s hair to nest in…They’re wrong! One night, I stirred as my wife kept swatting at something, “John”, she shouted, “There’s something in my hair”. By the time I opened the peepers and turned on the light, it was apparent there was a bat flying around in our bedroom. It had been in my wife’s hair which obviously awakened her. She jumped out of bed posthaste, ran to the bath room where she stuffed a towel under the door for extra security against that evil bat. I grabbed a fly swatter and off I went to hunt bats. I chased that flying rodent up the stairs and into a secure area where I had all the doors closed off. Now it was just the bat and me. He flitted back and forth in the hall and I tried to get some sort of a flying pattern out of this. Back came the viscious pest, right at me. I swung my trusty fly swatter and first crack, he was down. Whack! A flat bat. Everyone went back to sleep.

Now the eco-friendly bat hater wants me to build bat houses for mosquito control and to keep them out of her hair. That’s about all I have time for right now. Did I get at least a little chuckle out of you? If so, it has been worthwhile because as you know, only the truth is uttered here on the verandah. And sometimes true-life experiences can be the funniest things going.