.... where family is the source of humor!

Who Would Do Such a Thing? by Carol Wells

Sometimes a preceding event can foretell what is, or may, come. At least this is a superstitious belief some people have when using hindsight. By then, however, it is too late to take heed of the preceding event's warning or portent. On the other hand, it could just boil down to coincidence or just bad timing with the two events wholly unrelated outside of occurring closely together in time. Of course, there are times when humor results from a non-humorous situation - particularly if the preceding event felt closely enough related to the latter one to help bring to mind some humorous thoughts.

Ms. A. and her brief display of concern about autumn leaves' safety provides the perfect opening about the next day, when she picked my son and I up for an appointment. "Did you tell Frank," she knew me well enough to know that I did, but asking allowed an opening for us to share our men-folk's reaction to the leaf-saving incident.

Right past a large pile of leaves a neighboring township's elementary school had raked to the curb something moved. Ms. A. did not have time to react before we heard yelps and a clunk from under the vehicle.

"What was that?"

"Sounded like a dog," I said.

"It was a dog," The other passenger, a male, confirmed as he looked out the rear.

Ms. A did the right thing, even though she was starting to run behind schedule, and found a place to turn around to check on the animal. In that short period, another car had pulled over and its female driver was standing by the animal with tears in her eyes. "Is he dead," Ms. A. asked.

"I don't know, someone hit him. Who would do something like that," she asked while looking at Ms. A. with tear-filled eyes.

Ms. A. paused for a moment then decided to not answer the question after learning the woman was not the dog's owner. Instead, she suggested getting help for the animal and so these two women started to make use of their cell phones by calling the local police, animal control, and anyone else they could about this dog in the roadway. During this time, the dog came out of shock and made its way back into the school's front yard to lie down in the grass - alive but one of its hind legs injured.

Most fellow dog owners would feel sympathy for an injured canine and Ms. A. is a dog owner. She also learned, after talking to her fiancé - a police detective, if she left, to complete her transportation runs, she could risk charges of leaving the scene of an accident. She called her boss who confirmed this as a possibility.

"Did you call anyone," her fiancé asked when she called him back.

"I called the local police department. The dispatcher said an officer would come out for the dog."

"Ok, not much you can do now but sit and wait."

She waited. After 10 minutes her internal Employee Time Clock started ticking - she had three people in the van and one more, only 5 minutes away from the school, to pick up and transport to scheduled appointments. Not helped by my son starting to complain that he did not want to sit in front of a school but go to his school.

These thoughts, and guilt-trips, had her feeling more torn - she still sympathized about the dog but starting to feel anger (fueled in part to her not wishing to risk being charged with leaving the scene of an accident). "There are leash laws in this state," Ms. A. muttered. "What was the dog owner thinking letting their little rat-size of a dog run loose?"

Now the dog was larger than a rat but Ms. A. was not in the frame of mind where one wanted to correct her about this trivial fact as she was lapsing into Spanish by now. One did not need to know the language to sense whatever it was being said probably not complimentary about a certain, but unknown, pet owner.

Unfortunately, her fiancé and I both knew about the night before. Her constant referencing to this terrier being akin to a rat in size, although the timing may not been appropriate, had humor starting to bubble under the surface and all it needed was a spark to set things off to spiral to left field.

That spark came when the gentleman in our vehicle asked if he could get out to; as he worded it, take a leak. "Hell no," Ms. A. snapped, "You are already late for your appointments, I have one more to pick up, and I am still waiting here for the cops to arrive to deal with this rat dog. Last thing I need is you getting arrested for public indecency because you felt like peeing on a tree in front of a school!"

Ms. A's fiancé then speculated about the dog owner's, deciding to sue Ms. A., using the terrier as a witness. To which I commented she could have a t-shirt made saying she and O. J. have something in common - dog witnesses.

Then he learned the dog had darted out from behind a large pile of leaves. "You didn't hit any of the leaves," he asked with mock concern.

"No, I did not hit any friggin' leaves," Ms. A. retorted.

"It is nice to know that with A. behind the wheel dead leaves will safely make it across the road in one piece - but dogs ...," I paused for a moment then wavered my right hand in the air, "well, maybe."

Humorous Book Recommendations:             [ view all ]
Fraud: Essays
[David Rakoff; 256 pages]
David is another regular, of sorts, that appears on NPR's This American Life. Fraud is a collection of pieces shared in various magazines and on radio where David shares, and revels, his world-weary satirical humorous perspective. To those of us who counted the minutes to the end of a show ... can you relate?

There are two insults which no human being will endure: the assertion that he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
-- Sinclair Lewisn

Humor Is Relative thanks Cay Dickson, from the Houston Chronicle, for the compliment!

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