Bitten By Humor

Having family and friends that share a similar sense of humor is joyful. Easy laughers are much more pleasant to be around, and if someone “gets you,” it means they appreciate when you are joking, even if it isn’t a great joke.

The first time I met Buddie’s college girlfriend…let’s call her “Ellen,”…he and I had been dating about 5 months. We were engaged to be married, but I was still nervous about meeting this woman who had held his heart for three years.

Buds and Ellen were talking about a woman they had known in college, and Buds was trolling Ellen by pretending to not remember the shared friend’s hair color. I could tell by the twinkle in his eye and the twist of his grin that he was internally laughing, but Ellen was taking him very seriously.

At one point in the conversation, Ellen said, “Her hair was brownish-blonde.”

“Oh,” said Buds. “I thought it was blackish-blonde.”

At this point, I burst out laughing, but Ellen only looked annoyed.

That, my friends, is one of the many reasons he chose wisely.

Fast forward 22 years, and I’m in Vermont on vacation with Kelly, Paula, and six children for the week. A shared sense of humor is critical for this to be a success. (And it was.)

One evening Kel and Paula were asking how Buds was doing with his whole family away.

I laughingly began to complain about him.

“He just sent me this email about everything he’s getting done while we are away.”

They started laughing, too, then Monkey piped up.

“Mom, hey, Mom, you mean like those blog posts you wrote every year when Dad would bring us kids up to Vermont while you stayed home. Those multiple blog posts about how much you were accomplishing. Is it like that?”

I looked over at her, and she had that same twinkle in her eye and a similar twist in her smile. She tried hard to maintain an innocent straight face, but it didn’t last long.

As I went to tackle her, we both dissolved with laughter as I said, “Oh, well played, Monkey. Very well played.”

And when I shared the story with Buds later, he couldn’t have been prouder.