Not so many days ago we had one of those family blow-outs where everybody seemed to jump on each others nerves.  Okay, maybe I encroached on the families nerves.  Whatever, I just remember that everybody was mad.  Things were said that shouldn’t have been said.  It happens sometimes.  By now I don’t even recall what everyone was so darned mad about anymore.  I have an inkling that may have had something to do with me letting out a little roar from the underpants lion and then hitting the window locks in the Yukon.  Say what you will but it is hurtful when you do your best to create a moment of levity and people end up telling you (To summarize just some of what was said) they hate you, you are a smelly bastard, that they give up on you ever growing up, you are sick, they never liked you, they want to be put up for foster care, they want a divorce, that you should be ashamed of yourself, that they can’t stand you and that you are incapable of ever becoming civilized, you should be shot, you should be killed, you should take a one way trip to shitville and you smell so bad they don’t understand how you can live with yourself.  After a bit I became immune to the hurtful jabs because I was more concerned with trying to reconcile the failed juxtaposition of the gastric and the comedic relief I had sought so diligently to achieve.  But alas, other than the beneficial relief of intestinal pressures; comedic relief was not forthcoming. 

            I suppose it didn’t matter so much that I had hit the window locks. It was raining…hard.  The victims of my butt trumpetry; should they opt for an exchange of unfouled-air would be drenched from the deluge that would come with it.  The yelling had ended and now one of these pregnant silences fell upon the car.  Not a single passenger was spared from rage or hurt feelings.  The rain pounded on the steel roof of the truck and the windshield.  The wipers were pounding their monotonous swooshing sound.  In some desperate attempt to fill the air with something other than the heaviness of dysfunction mingling with methane I turned on the radio.  Whitney Houston was singing her hauntingly beautiful “I Will Always Love You.”  It was maybe the perfect song if you were looking for absolutely the most incredibly inappropriate song in the world to play.  Still nobody was talking and someone reached over to turn up the radio to drown out the silence that was the wake of our discordance.

(It might be a good idea to click this link now and let the music play in the background as you read the rest of the story.) So we are sitting at a red light.  Nobody is talking and I’m staring out the window at the driving rain when a Mexican man comes walking down the sidewalk.  He looked defeated.  Drenched from head to toe; it was obvious that the mans plans had been thwarted by the weather.  It seemed as if all he wanted to do was get home, get back to some comfortable sense of warmth and normalcy.  From his gait and demeanor it seemed that home might indeed be a very long way away.  And I’m feeling compassion for this man.  I suppose I am transposing some of my own feelings of momentary incompleteness and inadequacy upon this lonely looking man walking in the rain.  I’m staring at him, mesmerized actually and wondering what his story is.  I can feel my eyes water a bit.  My bottom lip almost feels a twinge of a quiver and Whitney Houston is singing, “And I ayyyyeeeee ayeeeee will always love you.” 

As I burst into maniacal laughter the family thought for a moment that I had blown a gasket.  With worried looks they asked me what was wrong and I had to explain to them just how wrong it had struck me as to be watching this Mexican man seemingly walking in slow motion, as if he were on a beach and we were on a romantic interlude while Whitney sang of eternal love in the background.  And finally the evasive comedic moment I had so desperately sought and failed at earlier was achieved.  That’s the problem with living with a comedian.  Sometimes they have to endure way too much when I’m working out a punch line.

Until next time…Don’t let your beer get hot and No Cheatin’!