You know those moments when you’re half sobbing, half laughing, basically mortified but not enough to be blinded to the humour of the situation? Of course these ‘simulhumourous’ events are funnier when they happen to other people. But they seems they happen to me more than the average Joe.
Like…
It’s funny, but totally not funny when you drive over the edge of a snowbank, expecting it to be soft and squishy, when in fact it’s frozen solid like a block of cement. The deafening thunk and your hubcap flying off tips you off. They you have to reverse and slink out of your car to retrieve your hubcap, praying silently that your neighbours aren’t watching in astonishment at your idiotic driving.
It’s funny, but totally not funny when you’re woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of one of your dogs—the one with the sensitive stomach—heaving. He pukes on the floor and then jumps onto your bed making a “more vomit is imminent sound” adjacent to your pillow. In a panic you sit up, grab the convulsing canine attempting to make a run for the tiled bathroom floor to spare your Nepalese area rug. In your haste you don’t realize your leg is tangled in the sheets and you lurch, head first off your very high bed. In an effort to save your dog, you rotate mid air, cradling the pup to your chest and take the impact of the hardwood floor fully on your back. The crack as your spine hits the hard wood floor awakens your sleeping husband who strains in the dark to make out the source of the wretching (the dog is still trying to barf) and your moaning and whimpering coming from the vicinity of the walk-in closet.
It’s funny, but totally not funny when you step off a curb and misjudge your foot placement because: a) you’re a klutz b) you’re staring ahead, contemplating how you’re going to fit your giant load of stuff you’re carrying into the car c) you fall a lot so it’s not exactly a surprise. As you go down you know it’s going to hurt, but you’re powerless to stop it. You feel your ankle twisting. When you hit the ground, your instinct is to jump up before anybody sees you. But you’re hurt and can’t actually move. You hope any passing cars will do you the favour of swerving around your quivering mound of a body instead of driving over your skull. As you lie there wondering how long it will take for you to actually be able to get up, you marvel at how the winter salt and gravel on the ground it actually quite pretty up close and then you remember that your friend lives only a few houses down from your current resting spot and you imagine how funny it would be if she stepped outside at that particular moment and saw you lying in a heap on her street.
It’s funny, but totally not funny when you brag to your tween that you used to be really sporty as a kid saying, “Of course I can still ride a scooter!” So you commandeer his Razor ride and launch yourself down the street—the street that you never realized is actually on quite a slope. As you speed along you revel in your awesomeness until the tiny front wheel (why are they SO small?!) begins to wiggle rather violently and in what seems like both slow motion and hyper speed, you crash onto the pavement. And as you lay in the prone position, you feel significantly less awesome and significantly more bruised.
Finally, it’s funny, but totally not funny that most of these incidents end with me injured, lying on the ground.
