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The Tea Maker
Too grumpy to laugh
People say I’m grumpy but I’m not really, and I can prove it.
I was in bed last night with my wife (aka Senior Management). She was playing with her Nintendo DS Lite and I was practicing my multi-tasking skills by reading a book and, simultaneously, listening to my music via headphones. As a life-long mono-tasker (is that a new word?), this was quite an achievement for me and I was thoroughly enjoying it.
The book I was reading was funny. In fact, it was hilarious and I began to laugh. Now, if any of you have ever laughed when your ears are enclosed in headphones, you will understand when I tell you that I couldn’t actually hear myself laughing. It was more of a physical experience than a sound.
To Senior Management however, it was deafening. She was finding it difficult to focus on whatever game she was playing on her Nintendo and she was also completely unaware that the sound I was hearing was my music, not my laughter, and certainly not her complaints.
This led to me being totally unresponsive to her demands to quieten down. But it also put me in a very dangerous situation, because ignoring Senior Management is very similar to teasing a gun-toting maniac who has a strong inclination to inflict bodily harm. Luckily for me, she only prodded me with her gun (it was her finger actually) and this got my attention, so I pulled off the headphones to see what all the prodding was about.
“Sorry,” I said. It’s always good to start with an apology. “Is my music bothering you?”
“It’s not your music, it’s your laughter.”
“Was I laughing?” I asked. I could hardly believe it myself.
“No, you were bellowing at the top of your voice and I’ll bet everyone in the street has been wondering why you, of all people, would be laughing.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” I said, “Honestly I don’t.”
“You are a renowned Grump and, if someone hears all that joy and hilarity coming from here, they’ll think I’ve swapped you for a happy person.”
So there you have it. She thinks I am so grumpy that I have lost the skill, or will, to have a good belly laugh every few years. But I wasn’t finished with her. “Look,” I said, handing my book to her. “Just read the first paragraph of this chapter and if you don’t laugh out loud, I will happily go to sleep without another word or, indeed, another chuckle.”
Well, she was hardly two sentences into Paragraph 1 when she went into laughter overdrive. It was so loud and uncontrollable I had to cover her mouth with my hand but this didn’t work too well. As she began to laugh and choke at the same time, it set me off again and the two of us ended up almost killing ourselves – suicide by fun.
“Life, for a Grump, isn’t all bad.” I thought to myself.
The Tea Maker
PS: You can comment on this story by emailing me at [email protected] and I’ll respond to your emails in next week’s column.
