It's A Guy Thing; You Wouldn't Understand

Why is it that when guys do something stupid, dangerous—or both at the same time—they feel the need to laugh about it? I will never understand this. My husband says I don’t understand it because I’m not “fun.” Since when is it that the only time a person can have “fun” is when they are engaged in dumb, death-defying, or darned near illegal stuff?

I remember the first time Tim took me skiing; we were still dating at the time and he decided to impress me with how “cool” he was by attempting to ski down the hill…backwards. Yep, backwards. I immediately wondered how stupid he could possibly be. Well apparently, quite stupid, because he went ahead and did so; or at least attempted to do so for about 5 yards, when he then twisted his knee in a direction it was never intended to go. He quickly landed in a heap—in extraordinary pain—and proceeded to laugh his head off about it. Idiot.  After that fine display the very same knee gave him trouble for years to come. I could almost swear he took pride in how it got that way.

Then there was the time that Tim and my dad decided they were going to fix something on my parent’s roof. I had no idea anything even remotely perilous was taking place until I headed outside to look for them. I found Tim on one side of the house holding the end of a rope that trailed up over the roof, while I found my dad dangling wildly from the rope, on the other side of the house. Both laughed themselves silly with that same idiotic “Yeah, we know it’s dumb and dangerous but that’s why it’s so funny” laugh when they saw the incredulous look of horror upon my face.

Another time, when we were all on vacation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Tim and my dad decided to go for a little walk up the side of the mountain behind our condo; they said they’d just be gone for a few minutes. Well over an hour had passed and my mother and I hadn’t seen any sign of them, so naturally we had begun to worry. Suddenly we saw my father bounding out of the woods at the base of the mountain, screaming, “Timmy’s been hurt…Timmy’s been hurt!” Full of fear we ran over to him to find out what happened. But then he started laughing that stupid laugh again, and Tim jumped out from behind a tree, laughing right along with him—completely unhurt, I might add. We wanted to strangle them both.

There have been so many similar incidences over the years I'm now accustomed to the fact that if I see that tell-tale stupid grin on either one of their faces, something dumb has certainly taken place. And unfortunately, they’ve passed that very same gene on to my son—who of course, thinks it’s funny.