It isn’t right to get a chuckle out of another person’s accident but sometimes, it can’t be helped. Like the mishaps shown on America’s Funniest Home Videos. A person falling off a boat into a lake or flying off a trampoline into a kiddie pool is funny, but for me, the humour often resides in the effort the person went to to create their own misfortune.
So, using scraps he found in the garage, a kid builds himself a ramp to ride his bike over. He tries it out and the ramp breaks or something else happens to land the poor schmoe on his head and wearing his bike like a pair of metal and rubber overalls.
This is what I laugh at: When a person goes to great lengths to create their own disaster. The funny thing about it is that, of course, he didn’t know all along that that was what he was preparing or he would have stopped shortly after he started. It is his innocence and ignorance of what is about to befall him that makes me chuckle.
This winter I have spent many cold overnights, on one occasion till 7 a.m., building three skating rinks in our backyard. The first two melted away, the third still lives. On the far side of the rink is a shed, in which sits a variety of shed stuff, including our portable firepit assembly – stand, pan, webbed top, etc.
On Sunday afternoon, I thought it would be an excellent time for a mid-winter fire to lift the spirits. So I hustled across the slippery ice, opened the shed door, and lifted the whole firepit contraption which, while not very heavy, is pretty awkward. Now, I could have left the shed, turned right and tromped through the snow, around the rink and to the backyard patio where we usually hold our fires. I could have. But that was the long way around. The short way, a much more sensible route, was to leave the shed and walk straight across the rink to the patio. This is what I did.
And this is what my feet did, halfway across the ice. They flew up to meet the sky. My head flew down to meet the ice. And the firepit, now curiously heavier than I had previously thought, flew down to meet my chest, shoulder, arm and stomach. Before it did, of course, it separated into four different parts, the better to pummel and puncture my suddenly prone body.
Now this is what I imagine. An old squirrel, sitting in our treehouse all winter, watching me make these big patches of ice and having no idea why I was doing this. Then looking on as I spread-eagled on my creation with a big black firepit crushing down on me as I lie there. I would not have blamed the little critter if it had let out a chuckle or two.
After all, I had worked so, so hard to doom myself to this fate. I was limping a lot due to a sore hip from tromping down all the snow for these rinks. Now I have a lame arm and shoulder to go with the hip. Fortunately, they are on the same side of my body so when I walk, I only moderately resemble the hunchback of Notre Dame.
This rink thing is working out just great! I don’t have any video but do you think AFV will give me the $10,000 if I just describe the whole affair to them?
©2013 Jim Hagarty
