No Laughing Matter

Our son, Jamie, was trying to relate an amusing incident to me as I sat behind him in their minivan while in Houston traffic the other day. He told me his wife, Tammy, had been attending a Spanish class at work, and he went on to say, “Tammy texted her mother (who had been sick) and said in Spanish, ‘Are you okay?’ to which her mother replied, ‘Si.’” Then he waited for me to laugh. I said her mother answered in kind. He patiently repeated the story, and I still didn’t laugh.

Finally, Jamie painstakingly told me what he had been trying to say, “Tammy called her mother and said, ‘In Spanish. Are you okay?’ She answered, ‘Si.’” Then we had a good laugh over it, since her mother had thought she was supposed to answer in Spanish, and I thought Tammy had spoken in Spanish, when she really meant she was in Spanish class!

Jamie had a lot of laughs at my expense, mostly due to my hearing or comprehending wrongly. For instance, I thought I heard him say of his 16-month old daughter, “Maddie has my legs.” I had him repeat it (he was in the other room), while I rationalized that when I had commented on 3-year-old Anne-Marie’s long legs, he had said she had the Shaw (her mother’s family) height, so maybe he meant that Maddie’s short, chubby legs were like his as a baby.

“Oh, you think she has your legs?” I responded, to which he gave an emphatic, “No!” After several laughing, impatient repetitions of his statement, he came close to me and carefully elucidated, “I said, ‘Maddie has hold of my legs!’” Whatever!

Later that day, we were sitting at a fast-food table watching him and the children enjoying pizza while their Pa Pa and I shared a cup of ice cream. “Would Maddie like a bite?” I asked Jamie. He said, sure, so I gave her a spoonful. Then, since the ice cream had come with a clear, domed lid that now sat upside down on the white table, I put a large dollop into it and passed it to him to feed her.

Seconds later, I glanced down and saw the blob of ice cream was on the table surface where the lid had been. “How did that get there!” I exclaimed, and then I saw that the domed cover had a very large opening in it, invisible on the white table. I thought Jamie would laugh himself sick over that one.