This past week my grandma flew into town to stay with my family for a while. She was feeling sick when she got here so in only a period of four days my mom made three trips to the store to buy food and medicine. I will say that she worked really hard to find things that my grandma would feel like eating. So we had a number of foods in the house, like individually wrapped prunes, just for her to eat. Right before we were supposed to leave for our trip to Houston/Galveston my grandma said that she would really like a baked potato. My mom was a bit irked because she already had the meals planned out and there was already a bunch of food for my grandma to eat. There would be plenty of time for my grandma to enjoy a baked potato when we got back from the trip, so we decided to wait.
The hotel we would be staying in in Houston served dinner and the menu was posted online, and guess what was being served? Baked Potatoes! My grandma was delighted to hear that. The next day when we got to the hotel we stayed in the car while my dad went and checked us in. At the front desk there was a sign: "The food truck did not make it today and consequently we will not be serving baked potatoes tonight, instead there will be [blah blah blah]." When my dad came back to the car and relayed the message to us we all started cracking up. I'd say this was a form of schadenfreude. My grandma was so excited when she found out that the hotel would be serving baked potatoes and the situation was so pitiful it was funny. It was even funnier that the sign specifically said there would be no baked potatoes. The story does have a happy ending however. At a restaurant the next night in Galveston my grandma finally got her baked potato.
This was not the only time I found a sad situation comical on our trip. We went to Space Center Houston and rode the tram to see Mission Control at NASA. The tram was fairly high off the ground and you had to climb up into it. We were really careful to make sure that my grandma got safely into the tram. When we arrived at the building that housed mission control everyone had to exit the tram. My grandma got off safely but somehow my mom's foot caught on the hump above the wheel and she fell off. She didn't just trip, she fell all the way to a laying position on the ground. There were audible gasps from everyone around. I saw her going but I couldn't reach her in time and it all happened so fast. When my mom made it clear that she was not hurt at all, I started laughing. This time it was just me that laughed, as strangers cannot exactly laugh at something like that.
Morreal would be quick to say that this was a prime example of the superiority theory, but I beg to differ. Yes I was glad that I had not fallen, but honestly if she had gotten hurt I would have rather it have been me that fell because it would have been less "disabling" for me. The people around us were also glad that they did not fall, but that did not make them laugh. I laughed more-so because of the situation and how startled I was by her fall. (I tend to be a nervous laugher). It was ironic because we were all so focused on making sure that my grandma didn't fall and then my mom fell. It was also kind of funny because so many people did see her fall and it was such a dramatic fall. I felt like I saw it in slow motion. I can honestly say that I felt no malice when I laughed, and she made clear that she was not hurt when I laughed. I think this was a better example of ironic situational humor.
No comments:
Post a Comment