Three Things That Made Me Laugh Out Loud

I was out this evening and Lauren was in charge of the kids. Cassidy worked on her History Fair book report. Her topic was Brian Piccolo. I’d never heard of him until we went to the library to research him and was quite impressed with his story. You might’ve heard of “Brian’s Song,” which was made into a movie.

After I arrived home, she gave me the report to read and considered it done. She’d used spell-check and told me not to bend or crinkle the papers as I read through it. Within the first three sentences I discovered a humorous error. She was comparing the attention paid to Brain Piccolo’s Hodgkin’s disease to the attention and knowledge paid to “All Timers” instead of Alzheimer’s. I corrected her and couldn’t help but laugh. What made it funnier was when she said, “I told you so” to Lauren. Lauren had told her to use the spell check and it would catch all of her errors. She’d asked Lauren what it was called and Lauren had said just type “all timer’s”. Well, all and timer's didn’t show up, so needless to say she had to reprint a revised copy of the report.

The second laugh I had tonight was when my son, Caden, was telling a story to all of us about his “Pal”. A “Pal” is a high school student who comes to the elementary each week to read books to the students. He very non-chalantly told us the following story. He recently approached his “Pal” and ran through a list of names of the high school kids that he had connections to, Lauren, her friends, my nephews, etc. to see if he knew any of them. Well, when he named Lauren’s boyfriend, Travis, the “Pal” said, “Oh, I don’t like him. Go on.” Travis is the absolute nicest guy there is, (next to my dad) and this was somewhat amusing and shocking to us all to hear. Travis didn’t even know who the guy was and insisted that Lauren go get the yearbook to see if it might trigger a memory of him. We all laughed because Lauren said there had to be some mistake because everyone loved Travis and that that was why he won “Most Handsome”, not because he was actually "most handsome". Okay, maybe this isn’t as funny as it was at the time, but I was totally cracking up at how upset and bothered by this that Travis actually was. I’m afraid he’s going to be up all night worrying about why this senior in high school doesn’t like him and he doesn’t even remember the guy. You’d have to know Travis to fully appreciate this story. Lauren remembers the guy and says he had to be joking with Caden. Caden insisted his "Pal" was serious. I told Caden to tell his “Pal” that Travis was his “bud” and not to talk bad about him again. Ha! Okay, you’d have to know Caden to know that as much as he worships Travis, he wouldn’t want to go there with anyone. He’s a peacemaker and rule follower and thinks everyone should just love one another.

My final story might gross you out, like it did Caden. I was washing my face and getting ready for bed in MY bathroom tonight when Cassidy came in to talk to me about something. I was in the process of changing from my shirt into my nightshirt when Caden suddenly appeared. He never walks in on me without giving me a heads up but it just sort of happened tonight. We both let out a sort of wail and he took off running straight to the living room to share the nightmare with Lauren and Travis. Cassidy said, “He’s telling them what just happened.” It’s not a very good feeling when you are naked from the waist up, drying your face off in a towel and when you open your eyes you’re staring at your 10-year-old son. I sure hope he doesn’t have nightmares tonight, but I might!