These Things Come in Threes

I’m quite the storyteller. Or so I’ve heard. So yesterday morning when I slammed the door on a 2005 Wrangler, trapping my finger neatly between the door and the frame, I was overcome with joy. This was a winner. And since it happened at 7:30 in the morning, I was assured an entire day’s worth of narrative bliss. The fact that the door had actually latched, leaving me to writhe about, dangling from the side of the car trying to reach the handle with my free hand, only sweetened the deal.

You see, the night before, my car had died in the rain. It wasn’t actually a big problem for me, maybe because nothing really is, but any good storyteller knows that a first-rate anecdote is one part shitty situation, and nine parts exaggeration. So I set sail on yet another glorious mission to make a hilarious mountain out of a mole hill. I had to get a ride home. I had to be inconvenient. I had to stay up late. I’d have to return to the broken hulk after a long day of work and wait on a tow truck, then follow it all the way back to the shop. My night would be ruined. What’s worse, I still needed a way to get to work in the morning. I’d have to get up early and put the roof back on my mom’s Jeep.

It was worth it though, because while I was stumbling out of bed extra early for the first day of a brand new job, the shiny red gas-guzzler was in the garage, rolling out a shimmering purple carpet worthy of Agamemnon himself. As I stood there sweating in my flannel pajamas, I had no idea I was about to reach a previously unknown nexus between smashed, bloody fingernails and comedy gold. I uttered all manner of expletives as I stretched the canvas roof over a frame that, I am now convinced, was at least four times larger than it had been the night before. Out of breath and thoroughly irritated, I angrily closed the passenger door. I heard it latch, right on my very breakable fingers. I winced in watery-eyed triumph. Another self-deprecating narrative brought to a successful close. This was a clear winner.

I love what I do, but there are dangers to this line of work. The chance that someone might not “get it.” That someone would think I don’t understand what real pain is, that I have never known true disappointment, that I am whiney and shallow, that I love to complain. But the truth is it’s just the opposite. None of these inconvenient happenings actually bother me at all. I don’t tell these stories because I want your sympathy. Instead, I desperately want your laughter. It’s like fine wine to me. It keeps me steady. Laughing at the little things makes those other ones more bearable, makes it easier to be ok. Sometimes nothing makes you feel better than to stand back and say “haha, sucks to be you.” If you’re always smiling, what effect can a little actual sadness possibly have? I think if laughter is the best medicine, then there can be no better thing to laugh at than yourself. If you’re always the target of your own jokes, the last mistake you will ever make is to take yourself too seriously. Thusly, I am totally foolish and totally real. This is all good news.

But like I said, there are risks. Unforeseen circumstances lurking in dark corners, threatening to expose your faux-emo reality to the world. Take, for example, the mid-day revelation that my grandfather was rushed to the hospital after a very bad fall, and that the doctors think he is bleeding into his brain. This sort of news makes the banality of my everyday complaints seem almost embarrassing. What the fuck do I do with this one? This story isn’t funny. I’m not sure how to react. It’s beyond my talent. No one is going to laugh at this. And if you won’t laugh with me, well, I might just come apart.