But Tell Me... Did I Make You Smile?

I read somewhere that people only laugh out loud (literally) when there are other people around to hear it, and that when they are alone and are presented with something humourous, their reaction is more one of internal acknowledgment.  I can't relate to that.  When I see or hear something funny, I laugh.  Quite loudly.  A lot.  But even still, I feel better to have shared that laughter with someone.  I began an exercise just over a year ago, where whenever I'm presented by something really funny I text the joke or the punchline or the scrap of randomness to several people, just to see the responses I get.  It amuses me to no end, particularly on slow and quiet afternoons.  The downside?  I'm amused by some pretty strange or simple things.  So to those of my friends who have received these random text messages and wondered What's she thinking?, there it is.  And for the rest of the world, here's today's source of amusement, along with the replies.

Armadillos can get leprosy.
(I read it in my office's bathroom reader and nearly dropped the book at the thought of a tail-less armadillo repeatedly walking into the ground until its nose falls off... sick subject, I guess, but the slapstick is golden).

The replies:

"Lol that is one interesting fact.  I had no idea."

"Haha, really?", followed by "How are you?" and "I'm having lunch with my mom."

"What are my chances of running into an armadillo?" followed by "Are we in danger?  How many armadillos are in Ontario?  If I can get a pet armadillo does it have to get vaccinated?  Where can I get an armadillo?"

"What??"

"How does that even come up?"

"I did not know that... it would be hard for them to walk if they did"

"I'm sorry to hear that, but you might have the wrong girl, no?" followed by "Thanks.  In that case, did you know you could get personalized m&m's?"

"There is nothing random about that statement at all"

"Ew.  I just saw hippos kill a croc.  I think hippos are my new fave animal."  (I think this one gets me.)


If there's a point to my little exercise, I haven't found it yet.  Anything to fill out a slow day, I guess.  And in the meantime, did I make you smile?

I Remember It Was Cold That Night

A week ago we stood at the side of the road, watching each other shiver in the dark and gambling on a prayer, stranded with a flat spare tire and a dying cellphone battery. This week he curses as we drive by the gas station we had been trying to reach that night, but didn't. He curses, but I can't be angry. I don't remember being angry last week, and by next spring, the next time we'll drive past this gas station, I likely won't remember the flat tire at all. The skies were clear, the stars were radiant that night.

Attention span? What attention span? We've seen thousands of years of history that we can't remember - couldn't be bothered to remember, tell, and re-tell. Thousands of years of history, and all we really think of is here and now. Where is here? What is now? A week ago it was a piece of limp rubber, a dying cellphone and a prayer, to be forgotten by next spring. I sometimes wish I could be so shallow as to believe these words.

Sure, we can't remember where we came from or how we got here, but of the prefectly trivial we remember much too much, do we not? I'll concede that not all of the information we retain is completely useless, but surely some memories I could stand to lose. Might I not be a different person if I did not stand on a history of failure and disappointment, if my scraps of success were not peppered with sober missteps and drunken embarrassments and regrettable choices?

I sometimes dream of how things might be if I could drop my guard and simply let myself be read, rather than clutching tightly at my cards and calculating what suit to show. And then I wonder if such a thing as "Daddy's Little Angel" truly exists, if there is any woman out there who has never misstepped or disappointed. It has to be a dream - I could never be she.