It makes The Daughter absolutely furious when you laugh at her; you are literally putting your life in your hands sometimes. She has a great sense of humour most of the time, so long as she's not the one that's being giggled at. The problem is though, she so frequently does and says things, most often completely unwittingly, that crack us up. Today was school photo day and I managed to get her in school looking as presentable as I possibly could, having lint-rollered the fluff and cat hair off her cardigan and made her promise not to fanny about with her hair. We had the pre-picture pep talk, in which I told her to imagine she'd just seen something funny or that daddy had tickled her. Because she seems to be so aware of her face when she has her photo taken, that she ends up grimacing and closing her eyes. When she came out of school she told me that she'd got the picture in her bag and seemed confident that it was a good one. With some trepidation, I pulled out the proof and burst out laughing. Wrong move, Mummy. "What?!" she shouted, "Let me see!". It truly is one of the worst pictures we have of her, her mouth is so tighly pursed and her face carrying an expression that can only be described as though she's just caught whiff of a fart. I told her it was fine, and quickly changed the subject, but the mood had been set for the journey home as she trudged alongside me chuntering. Until we got about halfway and she was walking along whilst looking backwards, engrossed in what the people behind were doing. And she fell spectacularly over a tuft of grass and hurtled towards the floor. Now, the actual fall itself wasn't what made me laugh - I'm not a total cow! - it was what she did afterwards that had my shoulders bobbing with mirth as I tried not to make her even more furious. As she was wailing and clutching her knee (she landed on grass so I think it was more the embarrassment than the pain), I tried to give her a hug and give her knee the magic rub, but she shoved me off and cried "For goodness sake, there's nothing WRONG with me!". So I bit my lip and said "Ok, I'll leave you be then" and started on my way. But instead of following she stood in the middle of the pavement wailing "Dooooon't leeeeeeeeeave meeeeeeee!". I spent the rest of the way pretending to look at people's gardens so I could look away and laugh.
People falling over in general is funny. Apart from old people, as breaking a hip is pretty serious. But other than that, someone tripping up a kerb and doing the 'Did anyone see?' glance is fair game. In fact, they've made a successful tv programme out of it! You can get £250 for making the nation LOL with your footage of someone elses misfortune. Everyone's a winner!
I must have a strange and cruel streak because I find stuff like that absolutely hilarious. When the nursery took me to one side and told me that The Boychild had been calling everyone an idiot, bad mummy laughed, before I realised that it was apparently a serious matter. On the way to collect him today I was walking behind a trendy type wearing chino shorts and deck shoes. Deck shoes, seriously. And everytime he put his foot on the floor he made a *squeak-trump* noise. Two minutes of *squeak-trump-squeak-trump* and I had to hang back and pretend I was on the phone because I was in stitches.
So beware, good people of the Midlands. Because I'm thinking of taking a video camera out with me from now on. The next time you leave the house with toothpaste all your face, or leave a public loo with ribbons of toilet roll stuck to your shoe, or slip on some ice - there'll be £250 in it for me and a laugh for the nation!
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