There are times to laugh, and then there are
times to laugh demonically
It’s interesting how people react differently when emotions rise. Some people cry at weddings and some star-struck fans faint during concerts.
I realized this weekend that my trademark reaction is laughter, because it was probably inappropriate to cackle after driving over my husband’s luggage. Twice.
I should have known that I’d be "a laugher" under certain conditions. After all, I’m almost famous for being the hysterical acolyte who laughed through a church service when the pastor read the word "circumcise" from a Bible verse.
But, back to Friday’s incident: We were carrying our bags out to the car for a weekend trip. My husband set his suitcase (filled with about a dozen CDs, a couple books and his toiletries) on the back of the car to later put in the trunk.
He then went back in the house to make a last minute phone call. I thought I’d be considerate and turn the car around for a faster getaway out of the driveway, so I got behind the wheel and put the car in reverse.
I felt a little bump as I rolled the wheels backward. I thought I might have hit a piece of ice or snow that fell from the wheel well or something innocent like that.
So, I drove forward again and then gave my Dodge Stratus all it had in reverse. As I got to the other end of the driveway, I looked up at a suitcase, a stocking cap and a music stand that were a lot flatter and scuffed looking than they should have been.
I instinctively glanced around the neighborhood to check for crime witnesses. For a split second, I thought I should keep driving to avoid admitting that I drove over everything my husband needed for the weekend — necessary things like aftershave and eye glasses.
I ran to the bag and looked inside to see complete destruction. The bag had even ripped in a few places because I turned the wheel as I drove it over the luggage.
The "maybe he won’t notice" idea came to mind, and I walked back to the car. I wondered how I could manage to pretend nothing happened … and then I started to giggle.
I saw the humor in the whole moment about the time he walked outside toward the car. When I saw the mixture of horror and confusion on his face, I laughed even harder.
He came closer to the car and my laughter rose to a demonic pitch as I clutched my sides and slapped the steering wheel.
He saw me laughing and assumed I was enjoying myself, which I really wasn’t, despite the laughter. He rifled through the bag still on the driveway, mumbling something about Clara Harris (the woman who was just convicted of murder after running over her husband three times).
His glasses were split in half. He glared at me across the driveway — him in a pile of despair and me, laughing behind the wheel — and held up one lens from his glasses as a signal of the damage I caused.
It all reminded me of the scene from "A Christmas Story" when the leggy lamp that was a "major award" gets broken.
All my husband could do was join me in the car and say, "You emulsified my CDs."
The rest of the weekend was lovely, and I kept the laughter to myself as much as possible when he brushed his teeth with a little stump of a toothbrush and opened a U-shaped hard-cover book to read.
