Last Girl Laughing
I recently asked one of my siblings what the most hilarious events of her childhood were. I had no idea I was the leading lady in our family’s comedy reel. My antics were laughable, but I never meant for them to be. I do NOT laugh at myself and I am easily offended when others do. However, I envy those easy going folks that gleefully tell of their most embarrassing moments concluding with the biggest belly chuckle in the room. So, today I am turning a new leaf. I am going to tell you one of the most embarrassing few minutes I’ve ever lived. As with all my accounts of days gone by, there is no ‘long story short.” Here it is in all its glory.
My earliest memories are of warm summer days in southeast Iowa with neighbors and friends. My mother grew up in Burlington, a city of mills and factories along the Mississippi River. A few years after she and my father married they returned to a small, nearby farming community to pastor a church. When I was a first grader though, we moved to northwest Arkansas. For the first time in my short life we had to pack suitcases for visits to places I once spent carefree afternoons.
One particular holiday our family of six was staying at my grandparents’ home. All the maternal relatives, aunts, uncles and cousins, had come for the evening to celebrate and fellowship. Wall to wall people filled a very small and noisy space when the time came to settle the kids for the night. Baths began and pajamas were donned. It came my turn to quickly bathe, so of course I did what I was told. (Insert reality filter here.) Behind the closed bathroom door I did as directed, dried, put on my nightgown, opened the medicine cabinet door and put a white substance from a tube onto my dampened toothbrush. No minty foam formed. Instead, bristles began to stick to my teeth. I panicked and grabbed some toilet paper to remove the horrible glue that was now welding my lips to my gums. The paper stuck too. I threw open the bathroom door to a kitchen full of festive adults and gave a panicked scream. All eyes turned. Those who could see me understood my dilemma. Mom took me to the sink and began rinsing and removing Poly-Grip from my mouth. I had put denture cream on my tooth brush. In my defense, no one I lived with used this product. I thought everything in a vanity coming from a tube was meant for dental hygiene.
I knew I had no choice but to seek help when tissue paper adhered to my teeth, but I was MORTIFIED! While mom was cleaning up my mess everyone else was hysterical. With all the ruckus, the cousins came to share in the fun and my humiliation was complete. They were laughing at me and I wanted to disappear.
My sister reminded me I hold one of the top spots in our family’s history of public blunders. Sis loves to put an addendum on this chapter, “At least it wasn’t Preparation H!” She is correct and I am grateful for that small blessing. This story has been told many times over the years and when it begins I leave the room, but shame on me. To withhold laughter at my own faultless mistakes inadvertently holds others to a standard of perfection that is not possible, certainly is not fair and marginalizes the boundless joy God lovingly gives.
Proverbs ends with a section dedicated to a wife of noble character. 31:25 says, “She is clothed with strength and dignity; SHE CAN LAUGH AT THE DAYS TO COME.” Laughter is a treasure, a gift, an art and it can make you strong. Don’t rob yourself of something so completely wondrous!
Love,
Gretchen