you gotta laugh

I am ten years old. My mom and I decide to spend the weekend together at a hotel near the mall. Shopping, chick-flicks, and mother-daughter bonding are all on the agenda. But the forecast is snowy, and when we arrive at check-in the staff is panicked. You see, Georgia, my home state, never experiences much of a winter. There was the great blizzard of 1991, but since then, the snowflake count totals around three.

The impeding storm gets a great deal of media attention and is beginning to put a damper on girls’ weekend. I soon realize that our picturesque getaway would be more like a Picasso than the Degas we had imagined. We walked to our room to discover no cable and no coffee pot. What kind of place is this? No coffee for mom? We are in trouble.

Despite the setbacks, we venture across the street and spend the day at the mall. We leave that evening to find Marietta, Georgia transformed. The city is covered in snow and it is hailing golf balls. Determined as she is, my mother insists we attend Mass. Her Nissan Quest is covered in ice, so we attempt to scrape the windows. Her seven-year-old minivan is falling apart. No heater, no defroster, and no way we would be able to drive more than a few feet with full visibility. Still we endure. I roll down the window and scrape the ice with my gloves. My mom thinks this is a good idea and follows suit. But instead of scraping, she continues to drive. Here we are, two crazy girls in parkas cruising down the street in the middle of a blizzard with our heads out the window. Half-way to church, we pull into an empty parking lot. The storm wins and we are never going to make it. Unable to breathe through the laughter I look over at my mom’s frozen eyelashes and chattering smile. She too is cracking up.

My life is filled with these stories. Above all things, I have learned to laugh. Fourteen years after the windowless blizzard, I am making an effort to find comedy in the every day. Even this past weekend…

JUNE 2012- Chicago, IL

“Oh you’re just around the block?” I say into the phone. “I’m looking forward to meeting you too. You’ll probably see me in a minute. I’m the one standing on the corner, next to the cop car…. Wait, that sounds bad.”

The evening is off to a great start. I almost forget this is the first time I am meeting Steven face to face. Despite my awkward introduction (see above), the tall, handsome, and 29 year-old accountant and I share laughs as we walk down the street. One perk of online dating: screening before meeting. You’ll get the occasional resume-style profile. But much like the corporate world, not all interviews end with a job offer.

At first, I don’t even notice that we seem to be walking to no particular destination. But two hours and three miles later, I ask him where we are going.

“Oh, you want to go somewhere?” he questions. I look at him, confused.

Do I want to go somewhere? I think to myself. The guy asks me to meet up for “a drink, maybe a bite” at 7:30 on a Saturday night on Michigan Avenue. I show up wearing wedges and a mini dress and go on a 3-mile hike before I find out he doesn’t have a plan.

“Well, we’ve been walking for a while; it might be nice to stop.” I reply, feeling the beginning of blisters on my feet. So we continue on, and head into the first stop we see. We immediately turn around. Too crowded, he claims. Five blocks later, we pass another spot. No go: too loud. The next two places are too uptight. What are we playing here? Gold-i-locks and the 3 bars? Note to men: this is why you make a plan before the date. We continue walking. Finally, when I’m almost certain my feet are going to fall off, he does it. He picks a location: the bowling alley.

Do we bowl? No, he doesn’t bowl. Believe me, the question in your head is the same as mine. But we sit at a table and order drinks: one vodka tonic (him), one vodka soda (me) and a giant glass of water (I was parched). The drinks arrive. Before I can unwrap my straw, he chugs the vodka tonic and orders another. This is when it starts to get weird.

We continue talking and I learn that Steven is a Freemason and an executive officer at his lodge. He tells me that he aspires to be a kind and caring individual, but it has been a battle for him most of his life. When I ask him to elaborate he explains that he often “wants to punch people that push the close-door button on the elevator more than once” and has “real trouble” stopping himself from yelling at passengers who do not move to the back of the elevator but are travelling to a high floor. Sounds like high-rise issues. He sarcastically claims that since our waitress is clearly busy he will go to the bar and get his third drink himself. He returns to the table, two cocktails in hand. Before I can thank him for refreshing my still-full glass, he chugs one of them in a few gulps and slams the empty cup on the table beside us. Double-fisting on a first date: this cannot be good.

Moments later, he transitions to the topic of religion. He shares his view on God’s omnipresence, and goes on a 20-minute tangent about how he believes a higher power to be literally present in the glass he is drinking out of and the table we were leaning on. After the next vodka tonic, he returns to the bar and closes his tab. He arrives back at the table, says “I’m not a big drinker, I’m ready to go”. Steve leads the way out of the not-too-crowded, not-too-uptight bowling alley and I hobble behind. We say goodbye and go our separate ways.

Now it’s midnight, and I am walking down Michigan Avenue alone. Where did this guy come from? I couldn’t help but laugh. How could one person have this many bad dates under her belt? For camaraderie, and to forget the throbbing pain that is coming from my feet after my high-heeled-half-marathon, I call my girlfriend to share in my hilarious misery.

I tell her the story of the night, and after asking me if it is possible that I have been Punk’d, I say to her “You know, I really should start writing this stuff down”. The next day, I tell the story to my best friend. Her and her mom both agree: write a blog, they encourage me. So here I am.

People often tell me that my life could be a sitcom, and I’d like to believe I wrote it that way. What is life if you can’t laugh? While some stories will be more comedic than others, they all have a place in the plot. So here’s to a happy ending.

For the curious, here is a map of the hike. No, I am not exaggerating.