funny but gross, but still funny

I get my best ideas in the weirdest ways.  Sometimes I wake up and I have the idea, sometimes I am in the shower and I have the idea, or sometimes something super gross is happening and I have the idea. I have put pen and paper next to my bed so if I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea, I can write it down so I don’t forget it.  In the shower it’s not so easy. In the middle of something gross, even less so.

So, my question for today is, what inspires you?

I saw a cartoon on my phone when I woke up today that was captioned, “why I can’t wear shorts.”  It was a picture of an old guy with his various personal parts and bits hanging low below his shorts.  It cracked me up. I mean it was really funny, but really gross, but still really funny. It sparked a memory of my grandpa that has to go back like 40 years ago.  It’s always amazing to me about how much stuff your brain actually holds and how seeing something can bring back a long-lost memory in a flash like that. But I digress here, now buckle up and let’s get to the story!  

I might have been like 10 years old and I have this picture in my brain of my grandpa walking down a hallway, I am not sure where we were.  I think my cousins and siblings were with us, but not really the point. We might have been at Temple (being the good little socio Jewish girl I was back then; we spent a lot of time at Temple.) My grandpa was a slow walker, I guess most grandpas are.  But because he was a slow walker, I was walking rather close to him to rush him. It never worked, he kept his same grandpa pace, no matter how much we tried to make him go faster. I am walking very close behind him, a big mistake I realize now, but back then, I was blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

I think we were walking to the water fountain.  Remember those?  Now-a-days everyone walks around with a water bottle, but not so much when I was growing up. We had to find a place to get a drink of water. Most public places had water fountains, I’m not sure that they still do but to be honest, I don’t look for them because, duh, I always carry my own water bottle. Anyway, my grandpa was fairly tall for our short family and he had to bend over to get a drink of water and by contrast, I was fairly short, well really short again to be honest and remember I was really close behind him, (trying to make him walk faster, we’ve already established this) so when he bent over, my face was pretty well aligned you know, with his back side. 

STOP! I am going to pause here, for effect and let you think about where this story is going. Yes, it is THAT obvious.  Yes, it is THAT gross. And yes 100% for sure it is THAT FUNNY!

HE FARTED! And it was a loud one! (Like I still tell my kids to this day, FARTS ARE ALWAYS FUNNY!)  I guess it might not have been that loud in retrospect, but because I was so close to the blasting zone, it sounded really loud.  It was also a stinker. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst thing you have ever smelled in your life, for me it was an 11. It might not have been that bad, but to my 10-year-old nose, being as up close and personal as I could possibly be, practically eating it for lunch, I would say, it was up there.

Now remember, my cousins, my siblings, other little Jewish kids, maybe the rabbi too, were all there, walking down the hallway, walking to the water fountain, playing, laughing, having fun. Picture it.  And then my dear sweet grandpa bends over to get water, lands a sonic boom of sorts in my face, direct hit, I react, AND everyone near that water fountain sees it.

PAUSE, again for effect. 

They are all laughing hysterically and wait for it, SO AM I!

FUNNY but GROSS but STILL FUNNY!

I don’t know why I am laughing, cause it was super gross.  I don’t know why I am laughing, cause it was super embarrassing. I don’t know why I am laughing cause I just ate a fart. But I am laughing. I am not just laughing; I am laughing my ass off. Like I said earlier farts are always funny. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the loudest laughing ever, it was a 20. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

At this point, I don’t remember much more, maybe kids making fun of me, definitely kids making fun of me, me trying to laugh it off, (to this day I still try to diffuse difficult situations with humor), and then maybe I blacked it out of my memory (thank you brain) until this morning when I saw that cartoon.

But there are lessons to be learned from my story….

1. Anything can be inspiring! Look around and make sure you don’t miss anything, you never know what will inspire you.
2. The brain is amazing!
3. Never walk that close behind old people, especially your grandpa.
4. Don’t forget to laugh even when something is gross because it might be funny too.

PS-#5 Farts are always funny!