What if You Are the Plucky Comic Relief?

By Amy Lagler

I’d like to think I’m a relatively bright person. By traditional measures, this is certainly true. I have a wall full of degrees and fond memories of being a professor to prove it. And yet, I continue to surprise myself with the levels of idiocy I am capable of. I’m thinking about this right now as I can’t swallow, having tried to gulp down near boiling, extra spicy kimchi soup that I overheated in the microwave. So far, I’ve been too embarrassed to go to the doctor on this one, but I’m pretty sure I have second degree burns on my upper palate and throat. It seems like being able to feed oneself and recognizing dangerously hot food is something we are supposed to learn early on. Didn’t our parents spend a great deal of time in front of our tiny, uncomprehending faces saying “HOT! HOT! HOT” while blowing on our food? I think not sticking scalding food in your mouth may actually be Life Lesson #1. Here is hoping you mastered that. I’m apparently still trying to learn it at 58.

In reality, there were so many things I failed to comprehend as a child that my mom spent a lot of time looking at me with a certain level of dismay. She was certain I was quite bright—an early reader with an explosive vocabulary and a watchful child who sized up situations pretty rapidly. But she was also a first-grade teacher, well acquainted with children who drifted away from reality in their decision-making processes. She feared for me. I was exactly the kind of child who would have tried to jump off a rooftop, positively certain that I would sprout wings and fly. Thankfully, I couldn’t figure out how to get on our roof, but I did once try to spin the handlebars on my bike 360 degrees while riding down the street. I was certain I was going so fast that I would continue to make forward motion even with my front wheel momentarily facing sideways. I’ll spare you the many details but will note my right eye still squeaks from where they pulled the stick out.

The handlebar incident was one of many things I tried as a child that did not work out for me… like licking a McDonald’s shamrock shake off the pavement. Possibly this would have been okay had it been my shamrock shake but, in fact, I have no idea whose shake it was or how long it had been there. In my defense, we were not allowed to go to McDonalds, so I was a bit desperate. This wasn’t a nutrition issue. We regularly ate Spam, friend baloney sandwiches, Chop Suey made strictly from canned ingredients, and some kind of weird Chef Boyardee “lasagna” made with cottage cheese. McDonalds, though, was simply too expensive in my mom’s eyes. Actually, all restaurants were too expensive in her eyes, as were other things I desperately needed, like Pringles. Every week we would have the same conversation in the chip aisle at Meijer Thrifty Acres, “Chips in a can? I’m not buying expensive chips in a can!” I did get to eat Pringles every year for Christmas breakfast (Thanks Santa!), but McDonalds was an even rarer treat.

So, of course, all my sisters and I wanted was McDonalds and I, especially, craved a shamrock shake—the bright green sign of spring that I was sure would create an unprecedented taste sensation in my mouth. But there was no way I was going to get a shamrock shake from my mom and, since they weren’t around in December, Santa was out too. So perhaps you can see why licking one off the sidewalk seemed like the best—maybe only option. Still, it was a profoundly bad idea. I’ll definitely spare you the details on that one.

Then there was the time I decided to create “mood lighting” in my bedroom so I could more effectively pretend I was a movie star. When I played “movie star” I liked to use my mom’s mink stole. I’m pretty sure she never actually wore it as it was hideously creepy, an animal pelt with its mouth and toenails still intact, but I thought it was the perfect way to transform myself into the epitome of Hollywood glamour. She let me borrow it as I usually just put it around my neck. She never anticipated that one day I would wrap it around an exposed lightbulb to cast myself in romantic shadows. Of course, that got boring pretty fast, so I shed my celebrity fantasies and went to play like a regular kid making pies out of berries from our boxwood bushes with my best friend across the street. I remember my dad yelling really loud and turning to see smoke pouring out of my bedroom window. By that point, I’d forgotten all about that poor little mink (as if being made into that stole wasn’t indignity enough). Thankfully, my parents let me come home.

I’d like to say I’ve outgrown this type of foolishness and, to a certain degree I have. I can now buy whatever food I am craving for myself and, obviously, dimmer switches have made creating mood lighting a lot less hazardous. But I have a stack of doctor’s bills that suggest I’m still capable of getting myself into situations that are both comical and dangerous. I’m sure many of you are thinking, “Oh it can’t be that bad—but try explaining to your chiropractor that your head is all messed up because you got your ponytail caught up in the roller of your vacuum cleaner. How does that even happen? Or imagine telling the urgent care doctor that you broke your rib falling headfirst into your recycle tub attempting to retrieve a Menard’s rebate worth $7.37.

I have a friend who is very safety conscious, and he often tries to steer me away from some of my brilliant, but ill-considered, plans. We’ll call him John (as that’s his name). I think he got a false sense of security around my intellect from the degrees on my wall, but it didn’t take him long to figure out that many of my most elaborate ideas are not academic or degree worthy in any way. Usually, he listens to my plan with a look that vacillates between humor and alarm, and then he holds up both his hands and says, “Okay Amy, let’s think this through for a minute.” The ensuing conversation usually results in some alterations to the plan for one safety reason or another, and occasionally, the total abandonment of the plan on account of impracticality or actual peril. Sometimes (and these are my favorite times), John plays along and comes up with ways to make the plan ever more death defying which inevitably results in a whole lot of laughter.

In truth, it would not be too difficult for me to reign in my internal idiot. My logical brain is quite capable of killing off everything in its path. But I don’t, because that fool represents some of my favorite human qualities. She is creative, imaginative, open to new ideas, solution oriented, and confident enough to think that she’s capable of actually coming up with solutions. She possesses incredible optimism and believes this is a place of infinite possibilities (even if she does sometimes forget about the frailties of a human body). Ultimately, she’s also very entertaining and she makes me laugh. Often, she makes others laugh, a group that includes not only friends, but random strangers and a lot of x-ray technicians and urgent care doctors who, for sure, need more laughs. I’m pretty sure we all do. So, while I’m not suggesting everyone should embrace their inner fool, I do believe that if you are someone prone to frivolity and have the ability to laugh at yourself, you should definitely share the joy.

Amy Lagler lives in Ann Arbor where she is currently nursing a broken nose from rough-housing with John’s 60-pound golden-doodle. Yes, he told her it was a bad idea (on more than one occasion). On the plus side, she had a great laugh with the doctor at the IHA on Jackson Road—and laughing with a broken nose is a lot less painful than laughing with a broken rib.

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