Laughing Hearts

by Dubby Riley, class clown

You know what's funny? No, I'm serious. Do you know? Because I'm interested. Time to laugh. There's always room for a good joke. Two guys walk in to a bar. Traveling salesman knocks on the farmer's door. The other day I met this guy. Those are all fine, but just living out of our lives--what can we turn around and look at that will make us giggle?

This is an interesting meeting spot. A bunch of middle aged crazies telling stories. Here's mine. I'm a dad, but getting kinda old and rough around the edges. The other day my daughter, who is 13 and fairly certain that I'm a total embarrasment, came rushing in to my office and said, "Meagan's dad is coming in. Go change your shirt."

Now granted, my Ronald McDonald House t-shirt which I got for some volunteering deal, does appear to be ready for the recycle bin, but I'm working in my home office here. "Dad, don't say anything dumb," she warned me as I buttoned up a silk shirt from the closet.

"This look ok for ya?," I asked as the door opened for Meagan's dad, Brian. "Well, it IS kinda wrinkled," she worried. Brian was fine. He loves Darby. I think he might have wanted to wear a different shirt though. I mean, girls with grass skirts? C'mon!

How are you with technology? I try to keep up but these gadgets...kind of frustrating. Take my phone for instance. Drives me crazy. Today I met a lady at our new building and I need to "save" the phone number for this businessman who has her art in his office. This is suppose to be simple right? So putting in the number--no problem there. I was able to learn how to do that within my first few years of training. But I still do NOT know how to correctly enter the name. Why don't they make it simple. Home? Cell? Work? Work--call it work. OK, Name. So you start to type it but there are three letters for each key. So it tries to guess which one you mean. So when I think I 've got it, I've changed the guy's name from Harold Miller to Nofart Offer. Great. Should be easy to remember that one.

These are all true stories by the way. Here's one that could have only happened in this family. I absolutely bust a gut every time I think about it. My wife's grandpa has been gone a number of years now. But my gosh, what a sweet heart. I swear, the most gentle soul I've ever met.

I didn't see this happen but him telling the story put you right in the scene. So you know how cats can totally clean themselves, right? What they can't get their tongues on, they'll lick their paws and use them as wash rags--you know what I mean.

So Grandpa Ferguson was talking to his wife's friend who was visiting. Now I didn't know the lady he was referring to, but I knew Anne's Grandmother who was a very proper lady. So I would guess her friend was similar.

So Grandpa Ferguson said to the lady, just as the kitty cat was grooming itself, "Don't you wish you could do that Marge?"

Now the cat had been doing something pretty innocent like using its paws to clean behind its ears or something. But just as he got Marge to look at the cat, the cat started in licking its private parts. See, I'm laughing so hard right now I could barely type this line. I guess Marge gave Grandpa Ferguson a glare and left him speechless. He said he was totally unable to think of how to recover, so he just left it as it was.

Here's to you to being able to lick your own private parts or better yet, to having a good laugh trying. Anyway, give us a story. We all have a funny bone waiting for a little nurturing.