My five-year-old is the funniest person I have ever met. I pride myself on quick, dry wit and don’t find just anything funny. He is my son so I am biased, but I cannot claim to have passed on to him the impeccable timing, opportune delivery, and precision wording that he possesses. Did I mention that he is five?
We were in the car on the way to his preschool one morning when they were predicting The Great Snow of 2018. I told him how exciting it was to be in our new house with a steep driveway we could sled down. I told him I thought we could sled down the driveway, across the road, and down the street with the hill in front of our house. In a judgmental and angry voice, I hear, “Daddy, you’re telling me dangerous things!”
Of course, I did the responsible thing as a father. I explained to him how there would be few cars out and even if there were, we would watch for them. Everything would be OK and safe. There was a long pause.
In a concerned and soft tone, he says, “Goodbye, Daddy. I’ll miss you.”
I absolutely howled. I told my office colleagues that morning that at not quite four years old, I had taught my son everything he needed to know in life. You cannot train that kind of sarcastic humor.
Laughter is the fertilizer of life. Laughing is at the heart of the best that life has to offer. I believe a great number of our personal and societal ills are exacerbated by a lack of laughing at our very own existence.
I am blessed beyond all imagination to live with someone who makes me laugh louder and harder than I have ever laughed. His humor keeps me grounded. Jimmy Buffet is right: If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.