I usually nail it when it comes to comedy and my son. We share a similar sense of humour. The other day I scooped a book from the side of the road. The title was: Letters to a nut by Ted L Nancy.
We cracked the book this evening and within a page or two (letters) my eyes were blurred with tears of laughter and I had to take my glasses off. We read on and cracked up further. Finally I laughed so much I had a serious pain in my belly and had to interrupt the read aloud to go and cook the small male a hunk of bison.
It’s the first time I’ve cooked bison and the packet warned not to over cook it.
The small male was also delighted by 20 copies of T H P Orchestra’s 45 rpm 1977 Canadian disco hit and attempted convene one of the twenty with a bashed up plastic blue kids record player I bought on Main Street for a dollar two months back and surprised him with to a degree of scorn. Unfortunately said record player does not work, but clearly the influence of Ted. L. Nancy and T H P Orchestra inspired. We realized we had sound, this was amazing, we had never had sound. We did not have motion but we did now have a record. (a 45 rpm)
Unfortunately I had to abandon the bison to attend to the excitement of the small blue record player. There was some disagreement over who should regard the bison and who the record player, but we continued ensemble with the record player. Lo and behold a surgical operation of unscrewing and examination was performed. The poor old undercarriage of the record player looked like it had been dropped out of a plane, but there was a suspiciously isolated spring that I persuaded the small male to reattach. We added power and we had a new hum of a motor!
Unfortunately the bison, long forgotten, was now sealed in a most inappropriate manner to cast iron, but we were at such a tentative moment in record player repair I dispatched the small male to stab the bison and turn it off. Another part discovered in the undercarriage was nominated as a possible needle. It did not look promising but eventually a wedge, poke, prod, forced snap, and deep breath gave a bit of an old scuzzly noise and the excitement mounted.
It was nothing short of a miraculous smile that came over the pair of us as the blue machine moved and needle was placed and an extremely slow and droning version of said 70’s pop song began. The singer sounded like his tongue was being tied up with dental floss and his arms were being forced on two tractors.
I then informed the small male that we had twenty copies of the same record that we could play forever on a continuous cycle of identical droning. He was thrilled. The bison was less than splendid, but we concluded we now bring in the ace talents of our resident kinetic sculptor/ motor-man extraordinaire Jeremy and all will be well.
We returned to letters to a nut. I’ve noted a pre-emptive disabling amount of laughter on announcing the addressee of the letter and a few words extracted in anticipation of what the letter may promise. I cried so much I looked like I’d been to a funeral. I never anticipated how much laughter I would share with my son and as he ages he has a wonderful habit of reliving funny conversations and exchanges and stories. I especially enjoy when he regales me with other peoples stories of laughter, stories we may hear or collect in passing. He’s a gas man, as they say in the Motherland. My ma sent me a text recently: she said she often thinks of the things he said in Mayo and smiles. I think he may have weighed in with strong opinions on effective farming based on the urban Vancouver model.
I’ve been also laughing a great deal working and collaborating with Lori on our performance art piece.