FanStory.com - On the Gift of a Sense of Humorby Rachelle Allen

In the song L'Chaim ("To Life") from Fiddler on the Roof, there's a lyric I especially love:

Our great men
have written words of wisdom
to be used when
hardships must be faced.

G-d obliges us
With hardships
so the words of wisdom
shouldn't go to waste.

I believe G-d applies this same technique when bestowing a sense of humor upon people. As a sort of package deal, He includes many, many times for them to need it.

Take, for example, the day, during my daughter's senior year of high school, when I was the designated "Bagel Mom" for her swim and diving team.

The commitment was to bring two big, full-sized brown paper grocery bags filled to the brim with bagels. So, we're talking approximately seven dozen bagels for fewer than three dozen girls. But, if you know anything about swimmers, it's that they don't "snack" so much as engage in feeding frenzies, like piranhas do. I watched it happen at every meet I attended and can swear under oath that not even once was there a crumb of leftover bagel.

Swim practice began at 2:45. My first piano lesson, fifteen minutes away, was to begin at 3:15, so I had enough time to take each sack, separately, in through the pool entrance of the school. It was conveniently located just a few yards from the parking lot.

I was feeling particularly fashionable that day in a new leopard "swirly" dress --one that, if I spun, would fan out like the rings of Saturn. I couldn't have loved it more. I accessorized with a big brown boater hat that I also loved and a pair of uber-stylish sunglasses adorned with gold prong-like accents where the bows hinged to the frame.

Unexpectedly, en route to the school, I was waylaid by malfunctioning traffic lights, caused by a pop-up windstorm. Traffic jams abounded, and my window for delivering the bagels and still making it to my lesson was dwindling. By the time I finally arrived in the school parking lot, I had only enough time for one trip in. I scooped a sack of bagels into each arm, hip-checked my car door closed and made a beeline for the pool entrance.

A few feet from it sat a picnic table full of maintenance men, eating chips, slugging down sodas and enjoying each other's company. Just as I approached, a gust of wind barreled itself beneath my swirly new leopard dress and blew it skyward.

To my horror, I watched as its hem danced to and fro, like the hips of a Hawaiian hula girl, high above my head.

My first impulse --well, okay, my second. My first was to scream-- was to cover my exposed self with the sacks of bagels. But the moment I began to attempt that, their contents started to shift, and I envisioned the catastrophe of having to tell the ravenous school of piranhas inside that their bagels were scattered all over the parking lot, doing cartwheels like tumbleweeds across a desert floor.

So, team player that I am, I stood, motionless, watching my airborne hemline and praying for the wind to please subside.

Eventually, it did, but as it did, my swirly dress began to succumb to gravity, and I realized, with unparalleled panic, what was about to occur: My beautiful dress was going to become impaled on the prongs of my oh-so-stylish sunglasses.

What I didn't anticipate was that my fashionable boater hat would then defy all laws of physics and tamp itself down onto the hem of my swirly dress, too.

So, there I stood, mere inches from a table full of maintenance workers, with the bottom of my inverted leopard dress sandwiched between my stylish hat and fancy sunglasses.

All this, as I balanced unstable paper grocery bags, filled to the rim with bagels, on each hip.

(Question: was it better or worse that my bra and panties were leopard print, as well?)

Mercifully, the cyclone whipped up another frenzy and catapulted my oh-so-special hat into the stratosphere. This turn of events segued to a chorus of male voices, shouting, "I'LL GET IT!!" which was followed by stampeding footfalls that sounded like a herd of bison in a Zumba class.

Simultaneously, the gusting winds wrenched my (now dismantled) designer sunglasses from my face, which allowed my acrobatic hemline to return to its proper place near my knees.

Thankfully, G-d's gift of my sense of humor came into play moments later. After relating the horrifying story to my daughter, I heard her shriek, "How could you DO that to me?"

"Pardon?" I remember saying, incredulous.

She continued. "Everyone in this school knows you! I'll be completely humiliated! My Senior year is RUINED!" (To this day --and she's forty now-- compassion is still not this girl's strong suit.)

Her reaction was so ludicrous that all I could do was laugh hysterically, and I continued to do so, in my car, between lessons, for the remainder of the day.

Wonderfully, this sense of humor, this gift that G-d generously bestowed, also clicks in during other people's less-than-perfect moments, too.

Like, at the early-morning piano lesson a couple Thursdays ago at the home of the reigning Mrs. New York. You read that correctly: Mrs. New York. (Who knew? But, at the same time, is anyone really surprised that this exists?)

She lives in the next suburb over from mine --the snooty one-- yet, oddly, she raises chickens. Ours is not a rural county. People here don't really "keep" livestock. But, in her defense, Mrs. New York's chickens are of the supermodel variety.

They have longer, shapelier legs, bigger, foofier feathers and smaller, lovelier beaks. Oh! And the coop Mrs. New York has provided for them? It's the model that's marketed at places like Home Depot as a children's Victorian-style playhouse. I kid you not! Nothing but the best for Mrs. New York's foofy Snootyville chickens. (If I sound bitter, it's because I do ever-so-slightly resent that there are chickens just one suburb over whose living conditions are better than my own. Call me shallow.)

But I digress...

I was in my usual teaching spot in Mrs. New York's sparkling home --in the chair next to the piano bench, where her children perch for their lessons. It's also directly in front of the door that leads to the inground pool, which, in turn, leads to the gate and fenced-in area where the Victorian playhouse is the roost for the foofy chickens of Snootyville.

Suddenly, a tumult erupted, and Mrs. New York emitted a most un-pageant-like shriek. But, rather than what anyone else in this situation would say --i.e., 'OUTTA MY WAY, BITCH!!'-- Mrs. New York, having regained her pageant manners, said, liltingly, "Um, excuse me, but may I please get past you to the door? I need to go out and rescue one of my chickens from a hawk that's trying to fly off with her."

"Oh, why, certainly!" I responded equally politely. (No Snootyville pageant queen is going to out-polite ME, frickin-A dammit!)

She proceeded to yank the door open like a WWE star and sprint, like Bruce Jenner back when he wore running shoes instead of stilettos. She aggressively grabbed her Heidi Klum-like bird by its slender ankles and engaged in a spirited tug-of-war with the hawk above them. Heidi-chicken was squawking like the farm animal she is, and Mrs. New York, who is a sprite of a thing --like, she MIGHT weigh more than the chicken, but I wouldn't make book on it-- looked as if she were at risk of getting carried off by the hawk, too.

It was quite the hilarity-filled start to my day of lessons. (Thank you, G-d.)

Meanwhile, her six-year-old son was on the piano bench, witnessing the entire scene. But, unlike MY offspring, Mrs. New York's child experienced no second-hand humiliation from his mother's predicament. Rather, her poor boy will probably be needing PTSD therapy for years to come. I'm sure of it. All he could do, when I said, "Whoa! This is very exciting! Does this happen often?" was stare blankly into the abyss and slowly shake his head. (To his credit, he did hold onto enough decorum to refrain from drooling.)

When his mother returned, triumphant, from the brouhaha, her silky blonde locks had transformed into slimy, matted serpents that slithered down her back, leaving muddy tracks on her pale pink athletic wear. Her eyes shone with the horror and humiliation wrought by knowing her picture-perfect image had just been forever sullied.

For a brief moment, I considered asking her how she could have done this to me, but I was pretty sure G-d skipped over her when bestowing the gift of a sense of humor.