If one more person tells me I laugh too much, I’m gonna split a gut laughing. I can’t help myself. I was born with a sense of the absurd and an ornery streak that makes the people around me uncomfortable over the possibility I might commit an arrestable offense.
The other day I was walking behind a man whose pants hung below several inches below his waist. I pondered over whether or not to say anything, but laughter got ahold of me before I could do the right thing. If I were still living at the bend of Dismal Creek, I would yank his britches up for him and no one would give it a second thought, but the sidewalk beneath my feet meandered on the pretty backstreets of a suburb west of Chicago. People frown on what they consider ‘inappropriate’ behavior.
Just then, a woman came running from one of the houses and apologized for her husband saying, “He suffers from dementia and sometimes forgets to act appropriately.” When hearing this word, I laughed so loud her neighbors rushed to their front doors and frowned at the ruckus. When noticing, the woman said, “Now, I have to go and apologize to them.” She glanced at her dispirited husband and frowned from the bother of him.
“Why?” I called after her as she hurried toward her neighbors with her husband in tow. Seemed to me they both needed a good laugh.