Who Packed My Sense of Humor?
Only a few days into this move, I came to the conclusion that one of the movers must’ve accidentally packed my sense of humor.
If only I’d put it in the suitcases that I’d hidden in the car or locked it in the laundry room with the French press and the cats. Then I could go retrieve it and put it to good use. Instead, it’s wrapped in packing paper and shoved into a box most likely labeled “Frizzell crock pot” or squashed at the bottom of a book box with the weight of judgmental novels crushing it flat.
With my sense of humor packed, there’s a lot more sniping going on in the family. No, Bee, it’s not funny when you soak the TLF bathroom and then leave the only bath mat in a wadded puddle on the floor. Yes, Tiny, it does get old when you shriek-gasp at every McDonald’s sighting in an attempt to express your finely tuned sense of irony. No, Bruiser, it is not entertaining when you applaud after belching. Yes, Twinkle, asking “Is Father coming?” in your best Dickensian beggar accent does stop being charming after the first twelve times. No, Littles, I don’t appreciate the fact that the night before we leave the state you inform me that you forgot to return the graphing calculator you borrowed from a friend.
Although, I will admit, there was some poorly timed hysterical laughter on my part when I discovered that the six year old had decided to shave her legs with my razor. I can’t get the thirteen year old to get rid of his ‘stache, but the six year old needs silk smooth legs. Okay then…
So anyway, my sense of humor has been on hiatus.
In its absence, I have resorted to survival napping. A nap a day keeps the murderous tendencies away and all that. This has been fine the last few days when we’ve been in TLF, but I admit to feelings of guilt when my body insisted on nodding off with startling regularity while the Man drove ‘Burban the Great (with a trailer, five kids, three pets, and a ridiculous amount of luggage) across eight states.
I felt less guilt than I probably should’ve as each nap enabled me to keep from losing my mind on the six inhabitants of our vehicle who insisted on chewing gum as loudly as possible all the way across the country. Ruth Anne, it was not funny when you gave all five kids three packs of gum each. I’m sending your kids kazoos before your move. Also, I love you, and I think you’re wonderful, and I’ll treasure our friendship for the rest of our lives.
Other things not amusing:
The Man taking ugly pictures of me sleeping in the car. Don’t tell me that’s what I have looked like as I’ve fallen asleep on friend’s couches for the last month and a half.
Blythe trying to put her entire purring face literally inside my ear while I attempt to nap—it tickles AND you’re smothering me to death
Prepping for the movers to come while the Man was on a work trip only to have them knock off after two hours with only the kitchen (the most utilized part of our home) and the garage packed…before a three day weekend.
Both the cats barfing in the car the first day (although, amazingly, those were our only barf incidents and, also amazingly, I managed to get Oswald’s barf completely on the rubber floor mat instead of all over Trigger’s dog bed, which was where he’d been aiming initially).
The terrible coffee at the hotel in Memphis—why you gotta do me like that?!
The amount of trash left in our car after almost two weeks on the road (and this includes the gum smashed into one side of Trigger’s dog bed—avoiding the cat barf was too good to be true).
The amount of fur left in our car after *see above—we could make another pet from all the fur, possibly some kind of sheepdog.
Thinking that running here would be a cake walk after the altitude in the Mojave and instead having my legs knocked out from under me by the humidity.
Rearranging and repacking suitcases at every other stop, and then never being completely sure what got packed where. Bee got a new swimsuit out of it, though, so she’s not complaining.
The kids losing our fingernail clippers and growing zombie claws. At least, I think they lost the fingernail clippers. They could just be packed somewhere unexpected.
And probably a few other things.
But before you think I’m just using this post to complain, let’s look on the bright side: even if my sense of humor has been in absentia, my ability to count the things I’m thankful for has remained. And there have been many, many things added to that list over the last few weeks.
Among those items is the fact that nothing lasts forever: not the wait period between houses, not interminable days of driving, and definitely not the losing of one’s sense of humor somewhere in the household goods.
As Julian of Norwich says (and I quote like a broken record), “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” And until then, there are naps and coffee in the morning and tea at night and new libraries to enjoy and the view of water out our TLF window and my husband’s hand holding mine as we drive mile after mile after mile.
And one day, probably in about two weeks, I’ll use an x-acto knife to slice open a box and there it will be—my sense of humor—probably a little musty smelling from weeks in a box on a truck and then in a storage unit, definitely wrinkly, most likely looking a little strange after all this time—and I’ll shake it out and put it where it goes and enjoy it for a few days…
…and then I’ll forget that I’d ever missed it at all.
