Absolute Hilarity

Okay! Prepare yourselves! I'm actually going to post something on this blog that is NOT serious! Not at all! In the interests of becoming a bit more down to earth, I'm going to share something about myself that's just funny. Neither of my parents would have said our family was just chock-full of laughter. All of us were serious the majority of the time. And when we DID laugh, it would usually be limited to a small to moderately-sized chuckle. And don't get me wrong... being serious is a good thing sometimes. But taking ourselves too seriously is always a recipe for disaster. So here goes:

After leaving my parents' home, my sense of humor slowly deviated from theirs. I developed a far more random streak in what I found funny. And in some ways I was just learning what it meant to let loose and have a good belly-laugh. But the thing was that, not being used to laughing, it sometimes popped out of me at inappropriate times. For instance, in my freshman year at Liberty, we were studying the poem "Out, Out--" by Robert Frost in my composition class. The poem starts out as though it's going to just describe a very rustic, peaceful setting. There is a boy cutting wood in the front yard with a buzz saw, he's looking at the scenery and describing it when all of a sudden, the kid's hand gets whacked off by the saw! The way the professor was talking about this poem, I decided, was simply the most hilarious thing I'd ever heard. "Whooooo! There goes his hand!" The laughter started building up in my chest the way storm clouds swiftly rolling in signals the downpour that's about to start. And then came the torrents! I just started laughing crazily, my whole body shaking with the hilarious image of that amputated hand just flying up into the air! "Wheeeeeeee!" And the most hilariously embarrassing thing was that the content of the poem hadn't inspired so much as a chuckle from most of my classmates. I was just sitting there trying to stop myself from crying at this hilariously absurd image. I think the professor had been intending his description to elicit a mild snicker from his students but when only a couple of students had done so, he was happy to see someone that appreciated this mildly amusing phrasing and was going to town with it. My friend sitting behind me had commenced patting me on the back whispering "Calm down, Wes. It's okay. Relax." And after a while, the laughing ceased and calm resumed. Now for one more!

Similar in content, this story was, perhaps, an escalation of my level of excitement. In my Sophomore and Junior years, I studied German to fulfill my language requirements. However, halfway through completing my requirements, the German courses were dropped due to the fact that the one and only qualified German professor left. So I was forced to find a new language (fortunately, they let the two credits stand as going toward the ultimate goal of studying a language) and decided on Greek. My first Greek professor was a lot of fun but he, unfortunately, only taught the first class in the subject. So for my second semester of Greek, I took a (somewhat eccentric) middle aged professor. I believe this guy had been using the same jokes sprinkled liberally throughout every semester for as long as he'd been teaching. He thought they were really good jokes and would always make himself chuckle when using them during the lecture. The first time, they were very mildly funny. They perhaps elicited a very mild chuckle from the students. But by the second time, they were no longer funny. By the fifth time, they'd most definitely worn out their welcome. By the tenth time (sometimes reached within the period of two subsequent lectures), they did not elicit any response at all. But, and perhaps he intended this, when they rolled around for the twentieth or thirtieth time, they suddenly became great! Or rather, the jokes themselves hadn't become great but the fact that he still laughed at them himself became great! So one day I am sitting there next to a friend when they roll around just one time too many and I just start to lose it. I scribble a quick note to my friend whilst trying (somewhat successfully) to restrain my case of the giggles. "I've cracked!!!" it read, and was accompanied by a hilariously scribbled picture of someone who'd clearly gone insane. My laughter became so hard to hold in that I actually started slipping from my chair as my body was wracked with laughter too hard to control. "I think Wes liked my joke!" came the statement from the head of the classroom. This simply made me shake harder with undiscovered reservoirs of laughter that had perhaps lain dormant for most of my life. All the giggles I should have had as a kid, a preadolescent, a teenager, and a young adult had seemingly been tapped into and I tried to squeeze out the words "May I please go to the bathroom?" between the uproarious squirts of glee. So I got out, got a drink of water, and came back and (for the most part) that was that. So there you have it! Two stories of absolutely hilarious goings-on in the life of Wes. Hope you enjoyed it!