Laughter is the best medicine to get through life
We all have those, “you have got to be kidding me” moments. And coming from someone who has always fairly earned her second-place spot, or who has always chosen the wrong answer between two correct answers, I now realize that maybe there isn’t television in heaven, but God needs entertainment too.
I’ve had a lot of moments in my life where I simply could not understand why things work out the way they do. It seems every time I attempt to do something on my own at a new job, I always forget the most critical part, the most important step, the one thing that is literally going to prevent a disaster. Of course, back in the middle school days when I slowly starting realizing my true unluckiness, I took it to heart. I was always mortified when I would pick the wrong answer on the winning question during a classroom game; losing it for the entire team. But I mean, when there’s five answers to choose from, and you pick the four wrong ones, this was the moment that I thought, “God is most definitely screwing with me.”
When I received my job at Auntie Anne’s, I’d always have a new misfortune, a new screw-up story to come home and tell my grandma. Shortly after receiving the job, my grandma’s mother passed away. And so my mom would love for me to tell her my funny stories about what I messed up on for the night, what chaos ensued because of me, and most importantly, what frustration I brought out in each of my bosses. My grandma would howl with laughter, and for a small moment, forget the sadness of losing her mother. For a brief two minutes, she would be completely captivated into one of my many catastrophe stories. It would take me years to realize what God was doing, but now I can thank Him for those little, “holy nutcracker” moments. I can look back and think about how there is simply no way that I’m that unlucky, but that it would quite literally take divine intervention for some of the events to take hold in my life. God knew that I could turn these stories into that of funny ones, He trusted that I would laugh at my own life-messes just as much as he and my grandma would.
Yes, I believe God has a sense of humor. He shows it every single day in my little dog, Rosie. Now I want to stress just how long, and just how impatiently I have prayed and waited for this dog to come into my life. Since I was just a tiny child, I have always wanted a dog, and it seemed that every cousin, every friend I was acquainted to, had a dog of their own that I always believed they didn’t love quite as much as I knew I would love my future dog. Well once my landlords finally gave me a hesitant, and almost regretful “yes” to my getting a dog, I found a litter of shih-tzus that were born in Pittsburgh. Of course I called and reserved the only girl in the litter, and of course I cried when I held her for the first time. I was 18 years old when I finally was able to call a dog my own. And I don’t want anyone to believe that I achieved this dream with quiet and patient prayer time; I begged God. I told him of my annoyance on many days that I didn’t have a dog as of yet, and on many days I just grew sad about it. But I knew God too well, as I consider him one of my close friends, and I knew that he would send her to me when he was ready.
Little Rosie has just been 9 pounds of pure hilarity and love. Here’s the kicker, I now know why God made me wait so long for her.
He hand-selected the only dog I have ever met that is stricken with OCD, anxiety, and quite literally, believes that she is human and has the very rights that we all hold as humans. This past week, we got her spayed and so her anxiety has been flaring up quite often. For some time now, I’ve considered her my support animal, but now it seems that the tables are turned; I have been her support human for two years now and it hasn’t been an easy road. Then again, why on earth would God send me a mentally healthy dog to begin with? I can’t say I’m shocked. If you want to talk about pure panic mode, it’s when your dog is having a complete mental breakdown at 3 a.m. and having quite the battle with the cone collar that was given to us by the vets to keep her from licking the incision. I mean seriously, not even I, the support human, could calm her down when she wakes up with a cone around her face and doesn’t understand why it’s there. She’s pretty OCD about things that are new and weren’t present the night before.
I could go on about my dog for days upon days. As you can tell, I love the little fur-ball. However, my outlook on these little events in my life is completely altered, as I now laugh with God rather than him just taking humor away from the many amusing happenings that occur in my life daily. It wouldn’t quite be my life unless God was finding little ways to screw with me and humor my family. But it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, because a life where everything goes as planned is never entertaining. And if I can make someone laugh about this lighthearted and comical life I’ve been living, I’d say it’s all worth it.
Paige Malenock is a resident of Uniontown.