My Sixth Sense

I've been reading Howie Mandell's book, "Don't Touch Me".  For a person with OCD, reading this book is like given a lit match to a pyromaniac - it's potentially dangerous.  It is a mini autobiography of Howie's life, with the main focus being on his OCD and ADHD.  Howie is a germ-a-phobe (ever notice how he only gives people fist bumps and never shakes their hands?) and I share some of his contamination fears.  Anyways, that's not the point of this post.

At one point in the book, Howie talks about what it means to have a sense of humour.  He compares it to our other senses - our sense of taste is the ability to detect taste; our sense of smell is the ability to detect smell etc. etc.  So, if we follow the same definition, having a sense of humour is the ability to detect humour.  I don't claim to be the funniest person in the world.  Hell, there are many times I know I'm not even the funniest person in the room.  I don't try to steal the show with outrageous stories or hilarious one-liners.  I don't always have a witty comeback on deck.  If you were to ask me to tell you the funniest joke I know, I'd need a solid ten minutes to think one up.  But I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if there is humour to be found in a certain situation, I can find it.

Case and point: After a long day of prepping for a garage sale and dealing with Katelyn's shenanigans of being a cranky-pants from teething, I was oh so very tired.  Miss I-Don't-Need-To-Nap decided to scream and cry until 3:00am.  The girl was beyond tired, as was I.  She finally sacked out and I stripped down, changed into my pjs and groggily climbed into bed.  These last few weeks, sleep takes a loooong time to find me.  It was close to two hours before I felt the wheels in my mind starting to shut down for the night.

It was as I was about to close my eyes that I heard the most dreaded sound in the world.  You Saskatchewanites will know exactly what I'm talking about - the sound of a lone mosquito buzzing somewhere in the room.  I flicked on the light, grabbed the nearest fly swatting type thing that was near me and hopped out of bed to begin the hunt.  There is no way I would be able to sleep with that gawdawful bzz bzz bzzz in the room.

Now, I should stop and point out that when I said I had changed into my pjs, what I meant was I put on my Care Bear boxer shorts.  I don't sleep with a top on...I find it just gets tangled and twisted and it's one more thing to keep me awake at night.  So, if you haven't already fully pictured this in your mind, let me paint it a little more clearly...it's now close to 5 AM; you have a baby sleeping in a bassinett and a husband snoring in bed with a cat stretched across his feet.  That seems normal enough until you zero in on the rather large woman in the blue Care Bear shorts who is jumping up and down, swinging a Rock Band manual over her head.  Given this woman's size and lack of proper undergarments, there is a lot of exposed skin that is moving and shaking (that much more area to attract the mosquito with!).  I was so ridonculously tired that all I could do was laugh. 

I could have chosen to be pissed off and cranky, but instead I chose to laugh.  And I love that about my life...even though I'm not always the most positive person, I will always, always be able to find the humour.