Maybe it's the kind of week we've had at school, or maybe I just tend toward irreverence in general.
When my great-nephew was baptized, I thought our family was going to be the first one ever thrown out of a baptism. In a small church that desperately needed our numbers. We just can't help ourselves when we get together. Someone says something irreverent (and funny), and someone starts shaking with silent laughter, then the next person wants to know what's funny, and we pass it down the pew, and before you know it, the entire pew is shaking. And the regular worshipers are glaring at us over their shoulders.
Today I had just attended the funeral for a 22-year-old, and I was driving home late this afternoon. My day began at 4:15 this morning, when I awoke in a panic, gasping in my head, thinking, "Oh my God, we have five classes of students and three teachers today." One teacher is the step-mother of the aforementioned young man; another is the only male on our staff who happens to be getting married tomorrow.
It wasn't really that bad a day at school. It certainly wasn't worthy of getting up at 4:15 in a tizzy. I went from classroom to classroom, sometimes helping with geometry or algebra (I really should have been a math teacher; it actually makes sense), sometimes just threatening. I guess I really made an impression on one student -- after first period he got in his truck and left. I think I may have actually taught an English lesson or two. At any rate, we dismissed at noon so staff members could attend the funeral, so there wasn't time for the students to realize they outnumbered us and could easily take over.
I was on the way home, and a truck pulled up next to me with one of those decals memorializing someone who has died. Now I'm just irreverent enough to find that a little bit..... different.... okay, it's strange.... to begin with, but this one went a little further.
It said. "In memory of First Name Last Name. Birth Year - Death Year. One Good Electrician."
At first I laughed just because it was funny.
Then I had to ask myself, "If he was so good, why is he dead?"
Then I couldn't STOP laughing.
You have to admit that I warned you with the title of this post.
4 comments:
I would totally laugh, too.
I would be laughing at that, too. My family is sorta like that, too. My cousin and I were baptized in a bar....ya gotta have a sense of humor for that to occur!!!
Hillary and I would always get in trouble for shaking with silent laughter in the church pews! we liked to say that we couldn't help it though becuase the holy ghost had gotten into us :]
McEvers family in Nelson Methodist Church, NY. After a hymn we all sat down at the exact same time and the pew cracked with a sound like a gunshot and collapsed in the middle. There was a long moment of silence, they we all started howling with laughter. As soon as it died down, someone would snigger and the gales started again. This went on for some time. The Pastor Reverend Knapp finally gave up, gave the benediction early and called it a day. But as he walked down the aisle, his face was twitching and his shoulders were shaking from the effort of holding in his own mirth!
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