I come
by my ability to laugh at bad luck honestly. Not from my mom or pops,
but my Aunt Marti—my mom’s younger sister. She can’t get
through the story of my mom being tossed head first off a demented
horse without tinkling just a little. Sure, mom required stitches,
she had gravel imbedded in her chin for weeks and her glasses were
smashed. All Marti saw was the trail horse my mom was riding take off
like a shot when a car backfired, then as quickly stop on a dime,
sending my mom over its ears like a game-winning NFL field goal. It
doesn’t sound funny unless you hear Marti tell it, and you have to
see her face contort in hysterics during the telling. Apparently, the
whole thing happened in slow motion.
The
first time I heard the story my innards seized with pity for my mom.
How awful! It didn’t seem like the sort of thing one should laugh
at, but my mom and her sister grew up poor, without a dad, and they
never felt sorry for themselves. So I imagine they learned to laugh
off a lot of stuff that would have sunk a lesser person.
That’s
just something that has stuck with me my whole life. Sure, I wasn’t
laughing at the time that my grandma made my two piece bathing
suit for a swim meet and didn’t know there was something called
swimsuit elastic, and my bottoms remained at one end of the pool as I
swam to the other. I was nine. And fat. And swimming the crawl. Right
about now a picture should be emerging of a big white butt rising out
of the water like an albino manatee. They didn’t have prescription
goggles like they do today, so I have no idea whether Aunt Marti was
in the stands laughing like a maniac or not, but I’m pretty sure I
know the answer to that one.
The
thing is, when it happened, the world didn’t stop spinning. Nor did
anyone bring me my bottoms. I hop/swam to the other end of the pool
to retrieve them myself, and realized then and there it wasn’t that
bad. At the age of nine, hop/swimming toward my giant white
waffle-weave bottoms with yellow daisy appliques, I was already
plotting how I’d tell the story. I knew that making it funny would
diffuse the horror. No one would ridicule me if I made them
laugh first.
I
rehearsed the story in the car on the way home to great reviews. To
this day when my dad finds something really truly hilarious he does a
crinkly-eyed, open-mouthed grimace-y silent laugh until he turns red
and tears stream down his face. When I saw the grimace and the tears
I knew I had him. I knew I was onto something.
Over
the years many many insane things have happened to me—things that
make the swimsuit episode pale in comparison. (I was only a little
kid then. I hadn’t even begun to date yet.) All these instances of
bad luck formed the foundation for the character of Charlotte
Nightingale. I took a girl who at first blush was maybe not quite as
tough as me (or my mom and her sister) and I threw everything I had
at her. Then I applied the magic that I had learned that day in the
car on the way home from my swim meet, and Charlotte evolved into
someone I love dearly, and who doesn’t mind one bit that I laugh
with her every chance I get.
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