FALLS

Why is it so funny when somebody falls down? Now don't look like that. You know exactly what I mean. Don't try to deny that you've watched Funniest Home Videos (which has made a ton of money pretty much just showing people falling down) and even while you are saying, "Wow, that must have hurt!" you are laughing your head off. Admit it.There is just something so funny about how people's faces look right before they hit the ground. I remember a time my brother fell. It doesn't really qualify as a normal fall because he was hit by lightning, but did he ever go down funny.His tent was in our back yard because he was "camping" out there. We heard the far off rumblings of thunder and he decided to take his tent down before it got wet. Mom might have told him to stay in the house but she was busy doing mom things so out he went. I was watching him out the back door from the safety of the kitchen.That rumbling was nearing really fast. In seconds it was a full scale lightning storm on us and he gave up his attempt to get his tent in and decided to make a run for the house, but for some reason he decided to keep hold of the metal center pole of his tent. He stopped about six feet from the back door and looked up. His mouth dropped open and kaboom! He stood there like a roman solider at attention grasping his spear. His hair stood on end and began to smoke in little spirals. He stood like that for a good ten seconds then he went face forward into the ground, metal pole still firmly in his grasp. I began to laugh even as I heard my mom yell at me to go check on my brother. She shouted she was going to check the attic. Apparently the same lightning that hit Tim also hit the house. Seems she thought it was more important to check the house than her son. Good thing she did. The bolt set the curtains on fire and might have set the house on fire if she hadn't torn them off and stamped out the fire. Meanwhile Tim began to crawl towards the house, totally unassisted by me. I wasn't going out there! He crawled all the way to the back door and pulled himself up the steps and never did let go of his tent pole till he was in the kitchen. (And in case you were wondering, he was perfectly ok. Dr. checked him out and except for a little melted hair there was no damage.)
I also saw one of my bosses take a pretty good fall. He had run across the street for coffee and was running back when he hit a patch of ice. His foot flew up in the air and he seemed to hang there a few feet off the ground for a whole minute. Kind of like Wiley Coyote when he runs off a cliff. His mouth opened and formed a perfect O and his eyes bugged out then - wham. Down he went. I began to laugh and I opened the door as he got up. He started to hop toward the door and it just made me laugh harder. Then, just as he reached the door and tried to enter, the door slipped from my hands because I was laughing so hard and bam. It shut and he ran into it and went down again. By the time the ambulance arrived the egg on his forehead from running into the door had swelled to comical proportions and I kept giggling even while they hauled him away. Surprisingly, he didn't fire me. He kind of saw the humor in it too.
 When I took my one of my pratfalls, I slipped coming out of the grocery store.  Now, while I find falls amusing my reaction to my own falls is more along the lines of, "Dear Lord, please don't let anyone have seen that!" Unfortunately someone had. I lay there for a moment on the pavement when I heard a timid voice ask if I was okay. I opened my eyes to see a miniature old gentleman hovering over me. He was about ninety, maybe 5 foot tall and seventy pounds soaking wet. I, on the other hand am not a tiny woman. This sweet fellow insisted on trying to help me up. I said no, I was okay, but he kept insisting. All I could picture was this tiny person somehow managing to get me halfway up when his strength would give out and we would crash to the pavement together, but this time I would land on him and squash him as sure as if I had landed on a bug! Embarrassing.
One other time I took a really spectacular fall. I had just finished laying out sheets of black plastic in my garden. Our yard had quite a steep incline and somehow I slipped on the plastic, did an earth shaking belly smack and slid on my tummy ten feet down the yard and ended up head first in a rose bush. Once again I prayed no one had seen, then I heard laughter coming from my neighbor's yard. She was laughing so hard tears were running down her face. Now you tell me you wouldn't have laughed too.