A day without laughter is a day wasted.  ~Charlie Chaplin

Me & Kyle exploring the caves with Casey in Lewisburg, West Virginia 2011

Kyle and I are back at it again, only because we have so much dashboard time and we make the most of it.  I know I’m the instigator, but I do love seeing Kyle use his imagination along with his strong personality to create these funny stories and scenarios!  I really can’t help myself, it’s way too much fun to pass up.  Not to mention, we continue quoting from our stories for days, weeks and months after the fact, laughing to own inside jokes.  If there is one bonding experience that we both equally enjoy, its laughing about nothing!

Staying to theme here’s a good one for the books.  Traffic was slower than usual when getting Kyle for his piano lessons a couple of Monday’s ago.  It looked like they were resurfacing the road.  Doesn’t matter, all I knew was that traffic heading to his music lesson was moving at a snail’s pace.  Did I mention I was running on fumes too?  Typical me, running my gas tank down to vapors and now there was another challenge creeping by in the next lane, roadway construction.  Thinking I was being clever, I plugged in my GPS and took a detour to the nearest Sheetz.  Yes, I am completely Directionally Challenged!  I knew my precious navigation system would take us in the opposite direction of the roadwork but since there was no way I would have been able to find my way out of the maze of side roads, at least not in enough time to get Kyle to his lessons or before I ran out of gas, I made that choice thinking it was best.

After we fueled up and grabbed grub, we headed back in the right direction, now running parallel to the construction work.   I don’t know about anyone else, but bumper-to-bumper traffic makes me antsy and almost claustrophobic.  Even though I was not among the chaos at that point, I was still feeling the effects of experiencing the traffic.  There is only one way to cure that, wide open roads and speed; neither of which were happening, plus I had precious cargo with me, Kyle.  So with the feeling of being trapped behind someone and moving at a snail’s pace, I became a little irritated with people in front of me.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have road rage at all!  But this was my inside feeling especially now that we were cutting it close on time for Kyle’s lesson.  Just then, a slower moving vehicle made their way in front of us.  Perfect!  That’s exactly what I needed.  Now on my defense, as not to confuse me with a serious lunatic driver, they were moving slower than the established speed limit sign.  Really?  It was beautiful day, no weather conditions to content with, no additional traffic, it was daylight, yet the driver felt the need to omit the suggested range of speed at which one was legally allowed to travel.

Anyway, it was at that moment that a funny thought entered my mind and I begin to snicker to myself.  Kyle, being a curious little man asked, “What? What Aunt Heather?, What are you laughing at?”.  Oh, Kyle you asked, I shall answer, “Wouldn’t that be funny if my car had a horn like on a big truck and I blew?  Could you image?  What would that lady think when she looked at us in her rear view mirror expecting to see a big truck and it was us?”  Please keep in mind I have a Nissan Rogue.  Kyle instantly caught on to the humor and began to laugh before chiming in with his own version of this scenario.

As we laughed about the idea, I saw a bolt of lighting hitting Kyle right in the brain, just as he busted out laughing so hard he couldn’t actually laugh.  He bend over as much as the seat belt would allow, while his stomach muscles contracted with faint giggles erupting from his throat.  I knew there was something really good to laugh at, I just didn’t know what it was and so following suit, I started to laugh too.  Kyle has one of those contagious laughs when he really finds something truly funny and it makes it really hard not to join in.  My mom is the same way.  When she starts to really laugh at something, even before knowing what it is, you find yourself participating in the mysterious humor that for some reason is really really funny!

After Kyle got his composure somewhat under control, he blurted out, “Imagine driving a smart car that had a big truck horn?”  That was completely hysterical!  I busted out laughing and I couldn’t talk, besides gasping for air and wiping the tears from my eyes,  I was trying to drive safely.  Once the shock of the outrageous comment settled, we continued with the story.

Kyle was on fire!  He started our story off with saying, “Ya Aunt Heather we could pull up to pappy in his truck and honk the horn.”  This was completely silly and seriously comical.  Feeding off of his thoughts, I said, “Image if there was a fleet of smart cars with the big truck horns, all honking them.  Can you image being the car in front hearing all those horns and thinking there was a caravan of big trucks?  Then to look in your rear view mirror and see a bunch of smart cars?”  Ok, I get it, this was a really stupid conversation, but I can’t even explain how much fun we had with it.  I even told my sister about the big truck horn disguised under the exterior of a smart car.  Even she thought is was funny too and gave a good chuckle when we talked.

Kyle’s imagination is so interesting!  He is one cool cat!  Keep the stories flowing buddy, that makes life fun and interesting.  It also helps break up the norm and the repetition of the day.  Not to mention it makes for a great Twitter comment.

 Read more on our stupid humor

Laughing About Nothing
Laughing About Nothing … True Story
Laughing About Nothing … Cats!

I am directionally challenged.  ~Heather Piper

Kyle getting ready to go hunting for Mentor Hunting with his pap pap

It’s no secret that I have no sense of direction.  I never did and I probably never will.  I get lost, literally, in my own back yard.  I am worse when I am driving.  The sense of anxiety takes over me and I can’t think straight.  I don’t mind being lost if I’m not the one driving.  But forget it if I’m the driver.  One time, I remember, around Christmas, my sister was home from college and I worked at the mall.  She wanted my car for the day so she dropped me off at work and came back for me that night.  What was really interesting was how we got lost going home and the route we took.  You see, I’m not the only one in the family like this.  My sister is equally, if not more, directionally challenged than I am.  What is ironic is that both of my parents have a great sense of direction.  My brother did as well.  Mom always says, “I don’t know where I went wrong with you girls. I don’t understand how you don’t know where you’re going.”  I always tell her that it’s their fault because they always knew where they were going so we didn’t have to pay attention, therefore not gaining any directional sense.

Jeremy (cousin) & Ryan, skinning a deer

Back to the mall.  Yes, my parent’s house is about 10 miles from the mall, pretty much a straight shot up the highway.  We’ve been going there since we were little, so one would think that it’s safe to have my sister pick me up from the mall and get us both back home without much fuss.  Guess again. Somehow we left the mall and next thing I noticed we were on some back road, driving somewhere. I remember I asked my sister, “Where are we?” and she said, “I don’t know, weren’t you paying attention?”  I said, “Me? You are the one driving!”  She retorted by saying, “But you are the passenger and you should have told me where to go.”  Can you believe that? We were lost somewhere near home.  Even, at that time, I had a cell phone. I was one of the first people that I knew of to get one.  Thank goodness!  I called home and my brother answered. I told him that we were lost. He started to laugh and then asked the dumbest question, “How on earth did you get lost coming home from the mall?”  I proceeded to tell him, “Well if I knew that, we wouldn’t be lost.”  We had to give him landmarks to get us back home and, it turns out, we were going in the opposite direction of Latrobe.  Eventually we ended up on route 22. Originally we were 10 miles from our final destination, my parents house, but now quite a bit further.  When we finally pulled up the driveway, Ryan stood on the porch laughing at us and said, “I see you made it home.”  Of course Ryan told mom and dad about our adventure. It should have taken us no more than 15 minutes but, instead, it took us close to an hour to get home.

Dad & Kyle ready to go hunting

Surprisingly, when I was trekking through Europe, I managed to find my way and I never felt lost.  It was weird, maybe cause I knew I couldn’t just pick up a phone and call for assistance, resulting in me actually paying attention to my whereabouts.  This coming from a person who has a hard time making her way out of a hotel.  It’s true I get twisted in the hallways and I always need assistance making my way to the front lobby.  When I was in Hilton Head a few weeks ago, I couldn’t make my way out of the condo resort when I left for church. I kept going around in circles until I somehow found my way out.  Keep in mind I was on foot too.

Two weekends ago I did learn something about myself that I never realized before.  You see, it was mentor season for deer hunting and dad took Kyle hunting on Saturday.  Kyle shot a deer and they tried looking for it until it got dark, but no luck finding it.  So, the next morning, dad had me go out with them to trek through the unfamiliar woods looking for this dead deer.  We split up going back maybe a mile or two into the woods.  I lost track of them pretty quickly, but I didn’t fret.  I never felt anxious and I never was nervous.  You see, I always knew I could find my way back out.  Maybe it’s ’cause I was used to running through the woods as a kid or because, to me, the woods seem to have such details that I can tell where I’m going.  Now, keep in mind, I wasn’t in the Amazon or the Alaskan frontier but I was still in unfamiliar territory.  Actually, I really enjoyed myself.  I felt like I was Katniss (Hunger Games) leaping over the trees, moving over the brush. I kind of cracked myself up.

Kyle is completely the opposite of me and my sister.  He has a pretty good sense of direction.  In fact, more than not, he is the one telling me where we are going.  He pays attention, probably because he knows his aunt won’t.  I like to think that me being directionally challenged is God’s way of taking my problem and using it as a teaching lesson for Kyle.