The Fun Never Ends
Really and truly, in this life the funny stuff never stops coming. That is, if you’re willing to LOOK at it as funny. And if you have people around you who support you in that view. Time was, my ten-year old boy and I used to think everything was funny. Microwaving an egg with the shell on as we once did? Hilarious! Duct-taping my old wig-head to a folded-up ironing board and dressing it in my bathrobe to scare his napping dad? Sidesplitting! Last week at the supermarket with the new ten-year old in my life along for the ride, I selected a bottle of sparkling water flavored to taste exactly like a fresh pink grapefruit. I needed some of this Ruby Red, and I needed it bad, because my trusty thermos-with-the-pop-up-nozzle had been sipped at over the last 30 minutes by this grandson of mine, whose mom and baby sister were bumping along in their own aisle, several food categories away. The boy just loves the special concoction I fill it with, a zesty combination of lemonade and mint tea that I mix up by the gallon. He named it ‘TT juice,’ when he first learned to talk, I guess because he calls me ‘TT’ and he sees this as my signature drink. Anyway, he had drained it down to the final two inches in this jaunty blue thermos of mine when at last we stood on the far side of the checkout lanes. Thirsty as I had been, I’d wanted to set an example for the child and not be one of those shoppers who begins devouring the bag of chips or cookies before even paying for them, secure in their belief that no ‘mere’ stock boy or sales associate would dare call him on this behavior. I had waited until I’d handed over the money and was on the ‘paid’ side of the register.But at that point, as my daughter paused to re-fasten the baby’s shoes, I saw my chance: In one swift motion, I twisted off the cap of that bottle of Ruby Red and began swiftly pouring it into mouth of my handy little thermos.In went the fizzy stuff. On went the screw-on top with the pop-up nozzle.I knew there was still SOME TT juice down at the bottom so naturally I shook the thing, to mix it up.I shook it hard. Then, I pulled on the pop-up nozzle…When I say the stuff geysered like Old Faithful I am not exaggerating. There was a loud pop and it flew high in the air, utterly soaking the whole front of my head before raining a fine mist down on the nine or ten people in the three checkout lines closest to us.Worse, it kept ON geysering, for almost half a minute. I couldn’t stop it, hard as I tried.And what did my young grandson say?“Don’t look up. Don't look around. Just let's walk out of her fast.”His mother, my own daughter, agreed, and so we did walk out.Which I found kind of a shame. I mean, I SAW those people’s faces. I KNOW they were about to join me in the laugh.As it was, I had to wait ‘til we got home with the groceries, where my mate was making a sandwich, along with our own visiting former ten-year-old, now a thoroughgoing adult of 29.I told them both the story.My mate just rolled his eyes, for the ten-thousandth time in our marriage.My son, however, laughed delightedly.Then he and I staged a reenactment - and the geysering was every bit as funny the second time as it had been the first.Who says you can’t repeat the past?
