The mailbox

This video is so horribly funny. Take a min and watch.

Today is humor day, if you can't tell. Now smile, think of something funny, and laugh. If you can't think of anything funny. Pretend to laugh. I read somewhere that your body can't tell the difference in between a fake laugh and a real one, so go a head and chortle. You know it's good for you.

I know it's mean, but the other day at a conference thing, I got distracted by a woman in front of me. She had this really long whisker protruding from her cheek. I was like. Wow. That looks...er...um...kind of funny.

It took superhuman strength to keep from laughing when she turned her head, and it bobbed up and down. I tucked my head into my chest and concentrated hard on thinking serious thoughts, on frowning and looking very intent on listening to the speaker.

But it didn't work. The harder I tried to hold in my laugh, the more it wanted to come out. I know. Terrible of me. Please don't think me unsympathetic to those inflicted with strange morphed face-hair they can do nothing about. I mean who doesn't have odd hairs, moles, bumps, ticks, or whatever?

Recently, I had a nuclear zit. It was huge. My sister tried plastering base on it to save me from public humiliation. She poured gallons of makeup onto it. But her efforts did nothing to help me, it only made it looked worse, like a huge volcanic eruption on my face. Not so nice.
I'm sure someone wondered what accident I had been in.

My point? Sometimes we just have to laugh at our humanness. (Is that a word?)Sometimes you just have to laugh, when you do stupid things. I remember putting Birthday candles in the dishwashers, much to my mothers dismay. Wax was everywhere.
Oh, and there was the time when I tested out my mom's soup with the thermometer, and the thermometer exploded. We had to throw away the soup, much to my mother's chagrin. Then there was the time when my sister was swaying back and forth on a chair, only to have the back of the chair crash through the window. Ooops.


I remember once, this older lady who came up to me, and said, "Oh, Stephanie, you're so cute, and grownup, you're getting bigger every day."

My very thoughtful reply was. "You too."

Boy, did that lady laugh. She laughed for almost 20 min. I'm not kidding. I went very red. I didn't mean it in the way she took it. Oh well.

When I write/edit my work, I almost always find something ridiculous that makes me laugh. Her eyes darted across the room. Honestly? How can they do that?

Odd mistakes, and blunders like these are very helpful in reaffirming how mortal I am. They help me to remember that I'm not perfect, nor should I expect myself or any other person on the planet to be. It also helps me to laugh. I for one believe that God has a sense of humor. If it wasn't true most of us wouldn't be here.


Word of kind advice, keep a log of your funny blunders, remember them, and save them for future reference. If they don't seem very funny now, perhaps with time they will be.

Last week, on a particularly raining day, I was feeling like Ms. Grumpus herself. I felt like I was growing warts and everything. To make a long story short, one of my 6 sisters,(I shan't say which one) ran over our mailbox quite a long time ago. And the poor little mailbox hasn't ever been the same since. It hasn't shut very well, and my family used various objects to prop it up. But as with all good things, the mailbox met it's end in the bad rainy weather, and fell to the ground. The mail-lady, did not see the fallen box and ceased to deliver the mail.

Sniff.

That's not even the worst part.

So. I told myself. I will fix the mailbox and we shall have mail again.
Thus me and my sister, Bess, went to work figuring out how to make the mailbox so it would shut properly. I got excited and decided to paint the mailbox. After all, my mom always wanted a pretty mailbox.

So, I being a painter, worked on the mailbox for two days. Then, during the night, I decided to take a break, and perhaps, finish it on the morrow.
Then tragedy struck.
My mom awoke early and innocently stuck the mailbox on it's makeshift stand so the mail would come, as she had been doing every day whilst I had been painting the mailbox---then bringing it in after it (the mail and the box) after the mail had come.

Sadly that morning it had been raining. I asked my mom if the paint could withstand the rain. My mom being familiar with all things painterly thought that it would be fine. However, there was much weeping, gnashing of teeth, when my mother brought in the mailbox, and we all gathered round to see the massacre of my Sistine mailbox.

The paint was peeling and popping up like it was a hundred years old, with balled up lumps of colored paint-mush dripping down it.

I broke into tears.

Naturally my mom tried to make the best of it. "Doesn't look that bad. Maybe you can fix it?"

I left the room teary-eyed and very sure that I was the only one in the world with a "rained on mailbox."
My mom felt bad. And I felt bad that my mom felt bad. So I told her not to feel bad, because I felt bad if she felt bad. Because it was really nobody's fault. Well. To make short story shorter. I decided not to let my "Rained on mailbox" get the best of me. And I scrubbed off the parts of the paint that were coming off, and I tried to make the best of a bad thing. I finished painting it.

It didn't look half bad. The pictures don't show it, but I plastered the background with glitter to make the bumpy paint look more interesting. Looks tons better in the sun. Then, just to make sure the rain/snow wouldn't ruin my paint job again, I sprayed it with sealing stuff. And I'm very happy with it.

My point? I suppose it's rather funny. I mean, who spends hours, and hours painting their mailbox, only to have their beautiful paint job sabotaged by acidic rain?

So, when life rains on your "mailbox" whatever kind it may be, you have two choices.

First choice, you can be sad, mad, angry, and depressed and start blaming the world for your tragic problems, and go hide in a hole and be a grump. Yeah. I'm sure that will make everybody happy.

Or you can let it go. See the rained on "Mailbox" for what it is. A fluke of life, something that you must learn and grow from. Then you must forgive yourself, or whoever, move on, and try to make the best out of a bad thing. It will get better.

Then you look at the problem straight in the eye and laugh. Nothing disarms a problem so easily as a laugh. Try it next time someone is rude to you. It really makes them scratch their heads. And best of all it really does make things better.