Several weeks ago someone said “scuzzy cable” and I giggled. Since that time that person has managed to insert the word “scuzzy” into conversations while talking to me, just to see if he can get me to laugh. I do laugh. Every time. I can’t help it. But it also reminded me of something Chris used to do. Years ago Chris said “I can get Cindy to laugh at anything. Even dead Presidents.” Then he’d look at me and say “Abraham Lincoln” and I’d giggle. “Herbert Hoover.” Complete laughing. By the time he’d say “Richard Nixon” I’d be rolling on the floor with tears leaking out of my eyes from laughing so hard. I know Presidents are not funny, particularly the dead ones. It had nothing to do with a dead President, but with the suggestion of funny and the delivery.
One time we were all at my parents’ house and we were getting ready to sit down for dinner. The whole family was there and Mom had asked Dad three times if he’d “say the blessin’” but he’d managed to not hear her every time. Saying grace before a big family meal used to be something that we did, but it wasn’t something we had done in some time. But any way, we were all standing there waiting and Dad says “What are we waiting on?”. That’s when Katrina looked at him and yelled “We are waiting for you to say the blessing.” (She married into the family. She pronounces her g’s). Then Chris, with a low voice, says “Dear Lord…Please let this man hurry up and say grace so we can eat.” My Dad heard that and said “Amen!” and we ate. But I still can’t stop giggling over that moment. I’m laughing now as I type this.
Chris had the gift of delivery. It wasn’t just the line or phrase. Anyone can say something funny. No…the way Chris did it was an art. A ballet of words. He had the knack not just for developing the line in his head, but for waiting until the most precise moment to release that line to the public. He could make dead Presidents (Hell, even the ones not dead yet) the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.
Your turn. What’s the funniest thing you remember Chris saying?
Happy Love Thursday!
Sitting around a table at a Pizza Hut in Chickasha after a show, and Roger was talking about this phenomenon that happened where he was driving down one of the main streets and the street lights would go out just as he would approach. We were all rapt in our attention, along for every word.
Then Chris piped up:
“it’s crazy. something like that happened to me too. When I drive past the bank, the sign goes from the time…to the TEMPERATURE! EVERY TIME. TIME. Then TEMPERATURE. What IS THAT?”
I. died. Because he said it in a way that was so sincere and authentic that we didn’t get he was full of shit until about the third TIME THEN TEMPERATURE.
I still laugh at bank time/temp signs.
*I didn’t get he was full of shit
He told me once that drinking coffee in the hottest part of the day was actually better for you because it made your inside temperatures the same as the outside. I believed him. I have a degree in biology and I believed him.
Thank God it wasn’t always just me.
Since I didn’t know Chris, I will tell you something scuzzy…When the SCSI cable was first developed, and the guy at Apple (not Steve Jobs, this was back in the Bad Apple era) tried to get everyone to call it a “Sexy” cable. Seriously.
Easy. That time we were in New Orleans eating at the oyster restaurant in Metarie (I think), and we had ordered so much shrimp and other seafood that we were all just stuffed, stuffed, stuffed. And Chris made the reference to Schindler’s List that he wished he “could have saved just one more” by which he meant just one more shrimp that he could have put in his stomach. I was crying so hard at the time, I just remember laughing from the time he said it to the time we were walking out to the car. “Just one more…Just one more.”
Brilliant.
So, I’d known him for only a few weeks, and he was the “boss” at the Writing Center. He and several of us grad student employees were working one day, and suddenly this guy Todd G. jumped up and RACED out of the door. Just RAN out!
I looked at Chris with this puzzled face, and Chris said, “Explosive diarrhea.” He was sitting there in a swivel chair behind the desk, leaning back, with his hands folded across his belly and he looked as sincere as could be. I said, “Oh…” and that was that. It was YEARS until I realized that no, Todd G had not told Chris ahead of time that he was sick and would be running out now and then. Nope. That was just Chris sassing me for the first time.
So say we all
This is not a story of Chris’s spoken words, but his written word and it has lived on to be a household thing for us. During our junior year at USAO, Chris, Kirk, and Dr. Rice got me involved in the student government. I might have been the lit club rep. Anyway, there was some sort of election and the gang got me to campaign and run. Chris was the PR man, probably with Kirk and Amy. My signs read “vote for Sarah Wilson – she is loopy on bus fumes.” It was just goofy, purely goofy. But everyone who saw it laughed and I was duly sucked into school life a bit more. Now, whether it is my own kid or a kid at school, my standard answer for something weird or silly is, ” loopy on bus fumes.” And I think of Chris every single time I think of it and it the that thought that of him, with his grin, that makes me laugh, even now.
Monocle. Every time I see one or that word is spoken I immediately think of Chris. The way he would speak of the monocle and the way he would speak as if he were high society and was simply missing his monocle. His voice that of the stereotypical uppity white monocle wearing male. So, yeah, monocle. They will forever make me laugh and think of him.
good good stuff here. good stuff indeed
heh….that sounds dirty!!!
Well, I’m a little behind – I think I was really trying to lay low this last week. Last year at this time was so close to the surface – I loved reading these posts. The thing I will always treasure and miss the most is the laughing. I swear nobody will ever make me laugh like he did – I can’t even think of a specific instance, it was just EVERYTHING. Thanks for your entry, Todd – I can see it now (:
To a student: “Are you blowing smoke up my ass? I think you’re blowing smoke up my ass.”