It's a Gift

I can find humor in almost any situation. It's a gift. Not something I asked for or even prayed for, but a gift God has given me. Being raised by a family who loved to laugh has helped out a bit too. If you asked me what we did for fun while growing up, it would be sitting in our family room on our scratchy brown sofa or around our our white enamel kitchen table...laughing.

When I was a little girl it was our family practice to have dinner together every evening. If my father worked late, mom would wait on Dad before we sat down to eat as a family. She didn't feed her four children separately. We all ate together or we didn't eat at all. That's just how it was.

Precious memories were made in that tiny little kitchen in San Lorenzo, California. One evening, when we were very young, my pea-hating sister Jennifer was ordered by Dad to eat all of the peas on her plate. We knew how much she despised those green little balls of mush. In tense silence, we watched the premier episode of Fear Factor-Family Edition. She was the opening act for dinner and a show that night, as she ate a scoop of peas, then drank a sip of milk to wash it down. But, what she was really doing was spitting her peas into her milk. Not the brightest idea when you are drinking out of a clear glass cup.

Eventually, the tiny mountain of peas towered above the milk in her glass. When Dad figured it out, boy-howdy was he mad. And guess who was ordered to drink her milk-peas? I admit it, I laughed until I cried.

She just cried.

As a teenager, we purchased our first video camera in 1985. The inaugural taping was of the six of us. Doing what else? Eating dinner together. Figuring out the new tripod, we balanced this huge-by-large camera atop it, carefully placing it in front of our oven to catch every moment of our Friday night pizza dinner. I belong to a group of hopeless comedians who thought it a great idea to strategically place large black olives in front of their teeth and talk into the lens. Decades later, this video still makes us roar with laughter.

And what a wonderful future blackmail tool - just in case any of us decide to run for office.