Laughs That Rumble Up From Your Belly

I love slapstick humour. I LOVE it. There’s nothing better than the kind of misshapen accident to make me laugh. I’m also quite partial to incidents that are the result of people doing something stupid that has an unintended comical consequence.

As a kid, I still remember some of my favourite clips from America’s Funniest Home Videos. One of them involved some guys playing football in a backyard. One of them goes long for the ball, jumps up to catch it, body checks the fence and the entire fence falls over. That kind of stuff makes me laugh so hard that I nearly pee myself.

Yesterday, I was at the grocery store loading the week’s entire haul onto the conveyor belt. Everything was up there and I went to grab the last item from the cart. Wifey had selected some black grapes and set them in the top part of the cart where kids and purses usually reside.

I must have grabbed the bag funny because it got caught in the wire cart and caused grapes to go everywhere. They flew. I tried to correct it, but I fumbled. More grapes got loose. Nearly 50 grapes rolling all over the grocery store floor.

A young employee walked by and I let him know that I had spilled the grapes and it needed to be cleaned up.

He looked at me. He looked at the grapes. And, gave me a look. Not the kind of look that said “you’re such an idiot.” The look of “who the fuck cares” tainted with “I don’t really see what the problem is” and an indigent dash of “it’s not my job to clean up the floor.”

Before I could even turn to let the cashier know, who was still caught up in a huge language barrier miscommunication with the previous customer, someone goes flying.

A poor lady. Her feet go right out from underneath her, fly up into the air, and she smashes down on her butt. With a thud she lands on the hard concrete floor.

People scuttle to help her up also sliding around on some of the now smooshed grapes. They get her to her feet and I hear threats of suing the store. She’s in shock; the crowd is disgusted at the danger of spilled grapes.

The lady is mostly embarrassed and if she’s not okay she’s not about it admit it. The small crowd surveys the grape disaster and their eyes fix on me. Standing there. Mouth open. Holding the incriminating bag of grapes.

I’m still in shock. Thank goodness. Because I’m not laughing. For the first time in my life I’ve managed to somehow maintain control.

I interrupt the cashier’s conversation with the previous customer to let her know about the grapes on the floor and the flying lady. She looks at me. And does nothing about the grapes. She does continue to scan my groceries.

I’m actually speechless for once.

As I’m formulating my next plan of action to get the grapes off the floor, another employee walks by, and says to my cashier as if she’s an idiot, “Can you please call for clean up?”

My cashier looks confused. Clean up? What needs to be cleaned up?

She doesn’t move other than continuing to scan my groceries.

The other staff person now shouts the order at her she quickly picks up the phone to call for a clean up. The cashier turns to me and says, “Well I didn’t call because that other guy knew about it and I thought he would come back. I guess not.”

All of this has taken place in less than a minute. Wifey, who was bagging the groceries, was completely oblivious to the entire incident that had taken place. As we’re rolling the buggy out of the store, I start to laugh. I’m laughing so hard that I can’t tell the story. Tears are forming in my eyes because this is so awful, but oh-so funny.

*****
Later on in the night, I need a good fix. So I explored the Cake Wrecks blog.

After having had a dinner party on Friday, where the desert provided was an utter cake wreck - the middle of the out-of-the-box cake wouldn’t cook so my friend just cut it out and then she ran out of space while trying to write “Happy Easter” in chocolate chips so it read “Happy Eastr” – I was hooked on the endorphins provided by a good belly laugh. This site provided them.

It was late and Wifey wanted to sleep. My laughter wasn’t appreciated. I didn’t want to stop reading so I picked up the laptop and carried it to the bathroom.

I couldn’t stop laughing. Out loud. At 12:30 am.

Wifey tapped on the bathroom door. She wanted to know if I was okay. Then she clued in. But was still kind of uncertain. She was in disbelief. Could I really be holed up in the bathroom, with the laptop, reading about baking disasters?

I had to inquire, “Is there something wrong with that?”