50 Hilarious Things

As we were driving to Thanksgiving dinner last week, we pulled up to a red light next to a sedan with a lone female driver.  Looking over, we noticed the woman was belting out what was clearly a familiar song.  We couldn’t hear her, but it was evident she was enjoying her alone time on this family-oriented holiday.  Or perhaps she just likes to sing!              

               Truth is, I’ve also been known to croon along with some of my favorite tunes while driving.  This happens when any favorite tune comes on (“Happy” by Pharell Williams will always get me going) and pretty much any Christmas carol.  (Let me digress to say, except for “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.”  It’s really just bad.)

               At any rate, it got me thinking about just how  commonplace the habit of singing in the car is. I was googling around and found it buried in a list of “50 Hilarious Things Everyone is Secretly Guilty of Doing.”  The list is in an article from 2019 by Bob Larkin in an online magazine “Best Life.”  Singing in the car and then discovering you’re being watched is number 38!

The article was interesting and while I actually don’t do every one of the 50 hilarious things, it turns out I do a pretty high number of them – or at least a facsimile of them.

               Number 2 on the list is “carefully examining an item at the grocery store because someone is standing in front of the thing you want.”  True, this happens a lot.  I used to turn and pick up another brand, pretending to read it, until the person moved on.  But now, I take the minute to stop, have a sip of coffee, close my eyes, and breathe.  It’s a mini-relaxing break in the middle of the grocery store!  And infinitely more fun than reading the back of a yogurt box.

               Item 7 on the list is “hitting the elevator floor button multiple times.”  Apparently, many of us think that the harder and faster we hit the button, the more likely the elevator will know we’re in a hurry.  At least, I guess that’s why I do it.  I’m sure it doesn’t make the machine work one bit faster, but I find myself pushing that button frequently.  And of course, if it takes more than three pushes, I’m taking the stairs.

               The 12^th behavior on the list is “eating a family sized bag of chips by yourself.”  Well, duh.  I haven’t done this much lately, but in my younger days, “family sized” was a suggestion.  Plus, in my family, we’d need a few of those bags for any real event.  Have you seen the single-sized, “snack” bags of chips?  They’re barely enough to keep a worm alive!

               The next-to-last one on the list is “checking your symptoms on the internet and convincing yourself you are at death’s door.”  Boy, that is a bad one and I do it all the time!  I don’t recommend it – always use a real doctor, not some website (even if they’re really good websites).  Reading one article will not replace the nine years your doc went to school to figure out if you have a head cold or pleurisy.

               A couple of the behaviors Mr. Larkin said “everybody” does actually don’t apply to me. The very first one said people check the refrigerator multiple times to see if different food “magically appeared.”  I’ve never done that, but I will confess to opening the door several times because either (a) I can’t find a leftover I know is in there or (b) I can’t remember what I saw five minutes ago.

               The comforting thing in all of this is that all people do hilarious things and it’s totally normal. So when I’m looking for the phone or glasses that I’m holding in my hand, I’m not going crazy – I’m normal!

Or so I keep telling myself.