Dancing Without Rhythm

Daddy's home. He's on the couch telling Benja one of his five million versions of The Three Little Pigs. In this one, the pigs made their houses out of cotton (not as in cotton balls, as I imagined, but as in cotton shirts), rocks (just randomly plunked on top of each other, not built to code) and the last house of paper. The poor little pigs didn't have a chance.

I was thinking tonight as I drove to the airport, about things that can consistently make me laugh. There are ridiculous things like undone zippers or stumbling---I know, it's really really wrong, but it just makes me laugh, AND newscasters mis-speaking. I never tire of those.

Then I remembered a story that Jay told me several months ago when he first started this job. This story can make me fall over laughing EVERY time I hear it, like it's the first time I've ever heard it. I know the story well enough to tell, but I always ask Jay to tell it, like it's the first time. I just can't get enough of it.

I started thinking of other stories that can always get a good guffaw out of me. I thought of a couple.

One of my friends in our early twenties, went to Burger King. Back when hardly anyone swiped debit cards---she wrote a check. She wrote the check out to Burger King. And signed it "Burger King". Maybe it was the setting when she told it, I couldn't stop laughing. We sign our names dozens of times in a week---that is a mistake I just can't ever imagine making. But anything is possible.

It's funny, right?

Another one of my favorite stories that can always make me laugh is one my Physiology Professor told---my senior year when I took his dumb class for the SECOND time. It was almost worth it for this story. We were learning about rods and cones and night blindness and such. He talked about how some people's rods didn't work as well as others and that's what caused poorer vision in the dark. And he used the example of walking into a dark theater after being out in the light. For some people their eyes take much longer to adjust, and others---their eyes never do. His wife, for example. She went to a movie alone one day and got there after it had already started. She fumbled around the theater trying to get to a seat and hoping not to step on any toes. She made her way to a row and started feeling around to get to the seat. She bumped into someone. She tried to move to another seat but ended up continuing to grope someone. She was embarrassed, but figured if she kept groping, eventually she'd find an empty seat. She continued to fumble and grope. Finally she felt two strong hands on her arms. These strong arms led her gently but firmly to the row in front of where she was and plunked her into an empty seat. She was relieved. She started to be embarrassed but realized, hey, it's a dark theater, it's bound to happen.

When the movie ended and the lights came on, she turned to apologize to the people behind her for stepping all over them. As she started to turn to them, something caught her eye. She looked around the entire theater. It was completely empty. There were only two other people in the entire theater. She had found them. They were not amused.

In a lecture hall of nearly 500 students, he told this story. I completely lost control and couldn't get it back together for a good 15 minutes. It's a curse, really. But I just couldn't get the vision of it out of my head. Those people she was groping KNEW there was no one else in the theater. They had to wonder what the heck her game was.

Then there was a story I laughed and cried about for about 2 weeks straight. It's much too long to relate completely, but it involved J (when we were dating), two coworkers who were visiting my church, and a recently baptized woman who was quite outspoken and not entirely well-versed in world history (I suppose). In the lesson J made a comment about what "honesty" was and used the example of how you'd answer if you lived in Nazi Germany and the Nazi's knocked on your door and asked if there were 20 Jews in your basement. It was a great point he made and well received. By most. It took us all by surprise when this woman turned and said, "No offense to you my brother, but the Lord promises that no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and my answer would be "yes". If them Nazi's knocked on my door and said, 'Do you have twenty cans of juice in the basement?' I would say YES!" I've never seen two people more close to exploding than my two coworkers that day. They were guests and were trying to be polite. I had no such expectations for myself and I was just laughing away. Quietly. Discreetly. I can only imagine what kind of ideas this woman had about our devotion to food storage.

The story I love to hear, that triggered all these memories is this:
J oversees the facility management of a company here that is owned by a certain Diminutive Big-Eared Former Presidential Candidate (DB-EFPC). This man is pretty amazing in the things he has accomplished. There's a really cool story about him rescuing his own employees who had been taken hostage during the Iranian hostage crisis (along with about 30 other Americans). Jimmy Carter couldn't do it, but doggonit, good ol' Texas boy DBEFPC could!

But that's not the one I want to tell. DB-EFPC has a philosophy about hiring the best employee candidates. He doesn't necessarily think the best employees were straight across the top 10% of a graduating class. He thinks you need to dig a little deeper than that and look beyond the resume. He conveyed this philosophy with a saying, "Eagles don't flock, you have to find them one at a time." Pretty cool eh? I particularly like this philosophy because I'm definitely an elect, most-baldest, high IQed eagle that is camouflaged in the top 65% of a graduating class. I appreciate being looked for one at a time.

So at his company HQ there are hundreds of plaques, statues, signs---etc that all display this slogan. If you know DB-EFPC, you know this slogan.

Well, there is a HUMONGOUS, GARGANTUAN, UNBELIEVABLY BIG statue of an eagle on a foundation about the size of a mini-cooper. It's large. It's in the central lobby of this campus. On it is a sign that says, "Given to DB-EFPC on his 75th birthday, from DB-EFPC Jr". Sweet, right? I mean, if money is no object, I think you should give your father a statue the size of a third world mansion. I probably would. That's not even the best part. The best part is the new slogan JR had coined as his contribution to the empire that had thus far been built. His father's "Eagles don't flock" philosophy had gotten them this far, right?

Engraved in brass. Carefully chosen words to live on forever for all the world to see.

"Eagles don't flock, they team."

That's it folks. Those five words can send me into convulsions of laughter EVERY TIME.

Can you IMAGINE what that must have been like for DB-EFPC when it was unveiled? I mean, you can look beyond the flocks of eagles all you want with employees, but this is FAMILY.

And I know, I just KNOW that every one of the tens of thousands of employees who may walk past this statue have one of two reactions. J's---"WHAT THE....?!?!?!?!" or mine "AHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! (falls on floor) CAN'TBREATHE MAKEITSTOP THISISTOOMUCH WHODOESTHISKINDOFSTUFF AHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!"

Let's hear your stories. You know you have one. Or two.

Posted by Angela on Friday, September 15, 2006 at 9/15/2006 | Permalink