When To Laugh

I don't know who said it but I believe it: "A lot of comedy is bad things happening to somebody else." I reckon if you put yourself into the shoes of all those people in movies that we laugh at, you would not find the situation quite as funny. Last week during the church service at the Harper Lake Baptist Church they had a funny thing to happen. Mr. Ludlowe Spenceharber had a suspender malfunction. It was during the closing hymn and everyone was standing. The deacons had slipped back and opened the doors at the back of the church to prepare for the exit of the congregation. A little breeze trickled down the aisles and over the singing church members. I reckon it was the change of temperature that made Ludlowe sneeze. Whatever it was that caused it, the sneezed jolted the two front clips that held his suspenders to his pants and Ludlowe, who was off to the side on the front row of an area they call the amen section, stood before the choir members with britches around his ankles. By the time the sneezer realized his situation almost everyone in the choir was laughing and a number of the others in attendance that day had turned toward their stares to see what they were laughing about. I don't think Ludlowe has been scarred by this incident. But I do think he learned from it. Yesterday when he came into the barbershop he was wearing his suspenders just like he has for the last thirty years. But now he has an additional fastener in the form of two giant safety pins attaching the front straps to his shirt. Maybe all the people who laughed would have felt differently if this had happened to them. But when you get right down to facts, it didn't.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle