Inappropriate Laughter
May 7, 2022 at 5:54 p.m.
Pat D'Amico, light verse contributor to Northwest Prime Time, has been known to laugh at the most inappropriate times
...by Pat D'Amico
It's either a character flaw or genetic. I like to point to the latter because my children were stifling chuckles and muffled snorts. One of us was asked to leave and not by the usher—both children suggested I contain myself in the vestibule.
Then there was the time my daughter at age 7 shouted, “Look, Mom, I'm riding my bike with no hands!”— straight into a bush. I noted that she was not bleeding, and then dissolved into helpless laughter. She recounts the incident to this day.
I watched my grease covered son at age 17 have a frenzied moment in our driveway when a doohicky on his jalopy broke. He looked like he was coming toward the house, so I removed myself to a place behind closed doors.
My son-in-law was giving some little kids a thrilling ride on a park merry-go-round when, in the process of slowing the momentum, he was flung into the dirt in his jacket and tie. I didn't see that one. but he painted me a picture and I had a whale of a good time memorializing it in verse, which brings me to the day I stepped off a boat into the drink:
I was toting a bag of garbage when I took my dockside dip.
I surfaced among the tuna cans bobbing around the ship.
My flailing arms were quickly grabbed, as was my fervent wish.
(There's a certain lack of dignity being hauled out like a fish.)
How I wish that friends and family had appeared out of thin air
And had a belly laugh on me and then we might be square.
--Pat D’Amico is a regular contributor to Northwest Prime Time
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