The Funnies

Rick and I laugh about a lot of things that others don’t find funny.

I guess that is the success of our relationship – a shared warped sense of humor.

Rick called the office from a customers bathroom and asked in a whisper, “Can you hear this?”
I said, “I hear polka music where are you?”
He is laughing that laugh you get in church when you know you can’t laugh.
He whispers, “This guy is alone and playing his accordion and dancing around the room. He is really getting down with his bad self.”
I asked how old he thought this guy was. He thought late 40's maybe early 50's.

That made us laugh harder to think he wasn’t that old.
Seriously everyone we hang with that age prefers AC/DC to polka.
That is my grandmother’s generation.
He whispered, “I went out to the truck to get something and came in and saw him dancing and playing in the living room and he looked up at me and he just smiled and nodded."

I said, “Well he’s comfortable and having fun there is no harm in it you know.”
As I laugh at this picture in my head I tell him, “Have a good day honey!”
Besides as you have all read here - I prefer a little crazy than the women who are naked right?

That got me thinking about another time we laughed and no one thought it was funny.
His Aunt Lucy was visiting her daughter Nancy.
Lucy was having a reaction to her medication while visiting Nancy so an ambulance was called to come get her.

Nancy lives high on the crest of a hill.
Her drive way has quite the slope.
The ambulance team could not get up the hill of their driveway because of the ice and snow.
So they parked down at the bottom and walked up to get Aunt Lucy.
The two paramedics were wheeling Lucy her down the driveway along with Nancy by their side. Nancy slipped on the ice and goes down.
The paramedics instinctively go to grab Nancy and let go of Lucy's wheelchair. (numbnuts)
Aunt Lucy went rolling down the hill…..weeeeeee…her chair actually went around the ambulance and hit the shrubs and went down into a snow drift.
She broke her wrists from putting her hands out to catch herself.

We were listening to this story being told to us by his cousin.
Rick and I began to laugh hysterically. She was appalled at us.
She yelled at us as though we were bad children.
We already knew that Aunt Lucy was fine and that while she did break her wrists she was at home and it was all good. We could just see teeny tiny Aunt Lucy go flying down that hill and for whatever reason making that sharp turn around the ambulance was very funny to us.
To this day we still find it funny.

I had to look away while his cousin was yelling at us because if I saw Rick’s face I knew I would crack up. We were told we were horrible horrible people for laughing at such a thing.
Maybe so, but we thought it was a hoot and her actually saying we were horrible horrible people sent us into convulsions of laughter.

Then there was the time we had to pick out a coffin for his mom.
That was a wild 2 weeks for me. Allow me to set this scene

I lived in Cleveland during this time and was going to visit Rick and my family for the weekend after I got home from a week long business trip. My plan was to touch down at the Cleveland airport Friday night, grab my car and drive directly to Rick’s house first for a Friday night cocktail.

I had a suitcase of jeans, a sweater and another sweatshirt or some such casual thing to wear home on Sunday. I was wearing a black wool skirt, blouse and blazer with heels because I was coming from work.

I got to Rick’s house around 7ish. He opened a bottle of wine and we sat at his table and began to talk about the week and upcoming weekend. I was still in my business clothes when his phone rang. It was the hospital. His mom had gone into the hospital for gall bladder surgery and he had made arrangements to go down there on Sunday for a few days.
She asked him not to come down until she got home. For once he listened to her.
But apparently she had taken a turn for the worse. (she also had leukemia)
The hospital personnel were telling him to come now.
It was a 4 hr trip from where he lived.

He began to throw things in a suitcase as I helped him pack.
He then asked me if I would come with him. He says, it will just be for the weekend.
I said okay. I ran up to my parents and asked my sisters and mom for some clothes.
I only had 1 pair of jeans and a sweater and sweatshirt. I needed more than that.
I got a few sweaters that were at least nicer than a sweatshirt.

Fast forward – his mom passes away. We spent 2 days in the hospital with no sleep at all.
When we finally went to his mom’s home we had to find the things necessary for the funeral.
We found a letter that she had written to Rick about what she wanted to wear and all these specific directions. That was so helpful. We were so thankful she was so anal retentive about everything. It truly made our life easy for this next week. We finally got some sleep but had to be up early to meet the funeral director.

This town only has 1,080 people. Everyone seems to know everyone. I found that weird but it was so helpful during this week.

We got to the funeral directors office and he gave us a book to choose a casket from.
We made a choice and we showed this man our choice when he returned.
He said, “Oh I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. Your mom’s directive was to be cremated.”
We both said in unison, “yes we are aware of her wishes.”
He went on, “Then you can only choose from these 2 pages.” As he turns the pages to the back of this book the caskets looked just like homemade go carts from the 60’s.
He left the room just as Rick and I went into mad hysteria.

Rick could barely get out that these look like wooden soap box derby cars he built in the 60’s.
I knew exactly without him saying a word. That exact thought went through my head.
We could barely talk. We couldn’t for the life of us understand why she had to have this horrible looking casket. We had the money for a nice casket.
We were appalled but couldn’t stop laughing long enough to speak.
We were both crying….literally crying from laughing so hard.
The more I tried to stop the more difficult it became.
It seemed like we had been left alone in this room forever when the director finally came back into the room.

I straightened up in my chair and kept my head down.
Rick was still snickering and asked, “Why must we choose one of these?”
The funeral director told us that was because she requested to be cremated.
Apparently one is cremated in their coffin.
Okay you could have told us it had to be a pine wood box so we weren’t so shocked.

Rick continued to clear his throat.
I knew he was trying not to laugh so I kept looking at my hands in my lap so I didn’t begin to giggle. Rick asked if they would make it look better because this was pathetic looking.
Then the man went on to explain how it is dressed and no one would know the difference etc. Someone came in the room at that moment and he excused himself and left.
That was all we needed. We laughed our asses off. We couldn’t stop.
Rick was making comments that were so funny yet most would consider offensive, inappropriate but so freakin' funny.
I got up and tried to walk across the room.
Apparently I thought that would help. It did not!
Rick said, “God I hope they don’t put wheels on this or they’ll think she’s driving straight to heaven or hell.”
That did it, I peed my pants a little.

I know this was all from pure exhaustion and stress.
We had been up for days and I am still wearing the same damn clothes.
Who knows, maybe we are just awful people but this was so funny to us at the time.

I was in this little town for over a week.
I was glad I wore a black wool skirt that day to work because I could wear different tops and be appropriate for the funeral and the events that proceeded. But I needed panties.
Rick said he would take me to the store. It was a General Store. No kidding. A real throw back general store. I felt like I was on Little House on the Prairie. On the right side of the store were guns and ammo and on the left were clothes. All of the panties were big ole cotton granny panties. I picked up a pair and that got Rick and I laughing our asses off again. I really didn’t want to pay money for these but I didn’t want to keep washing my underwear out in the sink either.

So I buy myself some granny panties.
They came in handy - you can wash and wax the car with them.
You know like a mitt.