Laughter Is Indeed the Best Medicine

I had a migraine that ran seventy-two hours without pause and ended with Tim's retelling of a middle school field trip run amuck.

Lo some years back, the sixth, seventh, and eight graders loaded onto buses and headed for the corn mazes of Kackleberry Farm. Seems one corn maze was open, and the other was closed. Seems a few kids broke into the closed maze and began pelting their classmates with corn cobs. Seems kids fell into one of three groups: The Perpetrators, The Got Caught Up in the Excitement-ers, The Innocent Bystanders. Seems the fine folks at Kackleberry were not amused. Seems a bunch of kids were subsequently suspended and have gone down in Alleluia Community School history known as the Kackleberry Eleven.

Do not ask me why this made me laugh until I cried.

But it did.

The Kackleberry Eleven.

Migraine ground to a halt.

And then there was Tim's pithy assessment of my lame, lame, mega lame phone: Mom, the eighties called. They want their phone back.

Reheated, cliched, totally tickled my funny bone.

When you've been on a l-o-n-g drive followed by a l-o-n-g trip and concluding with yet another l-o-n-g drive, you'll take all the laughs you can muster. We are home from adventures northward, and I'm trying to analyze it all.


If we drive 750 miles straight through and arrive with every muscle and joint throbbing and I say, "Never Again will we drive straight through." If we break it into two days and arrive with every muscle and joint throbbing and I say, "Never Again will I double our misery and spend TWO days doing this."

Long drives have a way of whittling away at long-held standards and parental values. A year or two ago, we were heading out the door to purchase a portable DVD player and stopped by the computer to check reviews. The item of interest -- deeply discounted -- garnered terrible reviews consistent with my experience with these devices -- they are lightweight, flimsy, easily broken. No matter, I now say. Shelling out seventy bucks for a few hours of glassy-eyed calm? Chump change. A bargain at twice the price.

Once again, I spent a good portion of the drive evaluating each state we traversed. Though West Virginia is prettier and North Carolina sports better flowers and cleaner bathrooms, Virginia is skinny, skinny, skinny where I-77 cuts through it and, therefore, remains my favorite state. For a more elaborate, state by state analysis, click here. Colorful details involving constipation included at no extra charge.

Road trip humor begins low brow and only sinks from there as you can clearly discern from these edifying puns shared en route:

Where was Sally when the bomb went off? Everywhere!
\
Knock, Knock. Who's there? Not Sally.

Now they are ganging up on me and simply insisting that I head to the grocery store. Re-entry has been rough. The logistics -- unpacking, resuming normal activities -- not so much. But fatigue, fever, stomach issues -- yeesh, we've been hit hard. And now I am going to will myself to head to the grocery store.