Laughed At or Laughed With

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures." ---Khalil Gibran

Warning: This post contains some crude moments, which may make you visualize something you do not care to visualize. Ye are warned.

Gasoline prices have mass transit companies very crowded. Our state is no different and my day job (sounds far more sexy than simply saying I work for) is actually working for a mass transit company in my state. Something happened last Friday that was shocking, funny and educational all in one.

I happened to be on a crowded bus and it was stopped at a signal light on a busy street. The wind blowing and on the far side of the intersection was a group of people at a bus stop waiting for us to arrive. Among this group were three adult women, three children and one adult male. Although the wind was blowing, it was unseasonably warm. I noticed that one adult woman was wearing very tight clothing. In fact, she was showing a great deal of skin. She was wearing a tube-top and the tightest dress pants I have ever seen. Her pants were so tight it was pushing her fat above the waist. I honestly wondered how she possibly got these pants buttoned or zipped. In addition, she was wearing high heels. Now, she was not enormous in size, nor was she unattractive. Due to the tube-top, her mid-section and her shoulders were bare.

The group was patiently waiting, when suddenly a piece of paper blew out of the hand of one of the children. The woman described above looked on in horror as the wind carried the paper into the middle of the intersection. Immediately, she began to move quickly towards the intersection. She ran quickly, high heels and all. Once in the middle of the intersection, her back towards the bus, she placed her foot on the piece of paper to keep it from blowing away again. Knowing she was holding up traffic and not in a safe place she quickly bent over to pick up the paper.

I am not sure which of the four fundamental forces came into play electromagnetism, strong interaction, weak interaction or gravitation. I was certain of the outcome. When this woman bent over in her extremely tight pants, they did not rip or split, but rather fell all the way to the ground right to her ankles. There she was bent over, rear facing us, in the center of the intersection, exposing her now very visible pink thong. Oddly, she had no idea she had lost her pants. She was busy keeping the paper from blowing away. I looked at the rest of her group and the remaining adults were laughing hysterically. People on the bus were shouting comments inside the bus and we were all laughing. She stood up and looked at her friends who were now shouting at her to look down. She looks down and realizes her pants are at her ankles. Embarrassed and flustered, she clumsily turns around to face the bus. In one quick motion, she slightly bends and reaches for her pants. Doing this threw her right back into the four fundamental forces. When she quickly reached her arms down in a slight bending and twisting motion, it managed to drag her tube-top right down to her waist. Did I mention she was now facing the busload of people?

"The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter." ---Mark Twain

The people on the bus were laughing and one woman makes a comment, she is losing everything. This resulted in more laughter. Finally, she manages to gather her clothes and move out of the intersection. Now, I am thinking to myself that there is no way she is going to get on this bus. She will certainly wait for the next one, hoping she would never see anyone on that bus again. Wrong again, as she boards the bus with her group. This is where the educational part of the story enters. Standing at the front of the bus, with people laughing and a few people making wise comments, she speaks. Looking at us all without any fear, she says, hi ya all my name is Christina. I thought you should have a name to go with that image that is now stuck in your mind. The entire bus erupted into laughter, which was led by her laughter. This remarkable woman knew the wise meaning of it is better to laugh with, than be laughed at. It is the best way I have ever witnessed anyone handle complete embarrassment and humiliation. Her comments drew people to her and made the ongoing and certain harassment stop instantly. It was very well handled.

"Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously." ---Og Mandino

"We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free. Tom Robbins Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln." ---Bruce Barton