Why God is Funny

Usually the funniest things happen when you are not allowed to laugh about them. I am not sure if the things are really more funny or if it is the guilt in laughing that makes it feel so good. I only know that I don’t laugh to tears about a mispronunciation of the “prophet Amos” except during a sermon.

Perhaps you can appreciate then, how incredibly alone I felt at Costco the other day when I experienced this: There at the end of my aisle next to the meats and cheeses was a karaoke professional. Let’s call him Dave. I am not joking. Neither was he. Hired by Costco to boost sales on the Kirkland home karaoke system, there stood Dave in his everyman jeans and white tennis shoes, looking like any mildly overweight American middle manager type on his day off. Except, that this was not his day off. He was standing in the concrete aisle with his Costco nametag on a lanyard singing Knights in White Satin, and he was really good. I could not look him in the eye. Neigh, I could hardly lift my head for fear of him knowing what troubled joy his predicament was causing me. I mean he was really good. All I could wonder was how did this happen? I wondered if this is one of those jobs that no one knows how to get. Like being a blimp pilot. No one has a friend who flies blimps. Airships were on my mind because of the recent crash of a Hood Dairy blimp in the northeast. I watched the coverage on CNN who could paint a tire blowout as a catastrophe of epic historical proportion, and they said that the disaster involved the blimp resting on the tree tops while the pilots tried to determine if they could simply repair the problem and fly away. I wouldn’t mind being in that air disaster myself. “I crashed the blimp again today” I would say as I loosened my tie and took off my blimp captain’s hat. Almost anything you could hit would involve bouncing or floating. All of that has little to do with Dave’s job except that both jobs are full of mystery to me. Was Dave a Costco greeter with a gift and nothing to loose? A hidden talent that was discovered at a company holiday party? Or is he a Karaoke consultant, hired to make it look easy to the bulk buying masses? Or worse was Dave the guy who meant it when he said “I’ll do anything to do what I love.” Be careful what you wish for. You might end up next to plastic Christmas tree in September singing Bob Seeger songs to people looking for the right salami pack.

All of this was going through my head, except a lot faster while I was looking at a shelving unit to store my own baggage in, and I kept looking up hoping for anyone to make eye contact with who could share all of these thoughts about Dave’s problem/job by sharing a quick laughing glance. But no one, and I really wanted to commune with someone about this, would look up. People were walking by him looking at the futon next him, discussing the price, a worker was assembling a display and everyone thought this was all perfectly normal. Knights in White Satin… loud enough to be heard throughout the store! I can not possibly be alone on this. I thought less of every person who passed without acknowledging the depth of the dark comedy unfolding at the end of the cheese aisle.

And what I really wished was that my friend Matt was at Costco today. Matt would have bounced with inexpressible wonder as he tried to figure out how best to capture the moment. It is things like this that make me happy in the face of the sorrow of losing Matt this week. Happy not only because it reminds me of Matt’s own dark gift of sarcastic criticism which made me laugh so many times. Not only because it causes me to share something with Matt in my mind which I know he would have appreciated. But mostly because it makes me think about where Matt is now. I know that he is in the all encompassing presence of the most creative being that is. Not just creative like he can make a monkey or an elephant, but like he made up the things that are funny about monkeys and probably thinks its weird that elephants can pull stuff to their mouth with this really long nose/arm/hand like thing. It has made me think a lot about Matt’s new residence. I think God is funny. I can’t really think what kind of jokes are funny to God. Like I am not really sure if the Amos thing was funny to God or not. But it seems like someone taught us to laugh at stuff. And someone created us funny and not funny, in his own image. I am pretty sure that Matt made God laugh and even more sure that it is reciprocal. That makes me happy, even while I miss Matt every time I notice him missing.


Here is a slide show of Matt and his family.