Noodles: Cake.

I once read that humorists live small, pitiful lives.  Which is true, if you think about it.  It’s hard to joke about, say, sacrificing your life for the common good of your fellow humans.  Great people are rarely funny people.  Even when they have a sense of humor, what will they laugh about?  

“Today?  Huh huh huh yuk yuk....Todaaay, I hugged TWENTY LEPERS and prayed soft prayers with them in the candlelight and three of them experienced miraculous healing!  IS THAT LIKE NOT THE MOST HYYYSTERICAL THING YOU HAVE EVER HEARDDD???  I mean, com’on!!!!!!”  

On the extreme other end of the spectrum, you have, for example, me.  I will probably never pilot a spaceship to Mars and bring back a strange new mineral that cures all diseases.  But I will, with alarming regularity, experience trivial little setbacks in my journey up the vertical glacier of social acceptance.  

Take today.  

We had cake in the break room.  

I’m positive that cake is common to break rooms simply because the words rhyme.  This particular cake was left over from a coworker’s child’s something or other.  I can’t remember.  Let’s say it was baptism.  That’s your first clue...when there’s cake at a baptism, first birthday, or wedding, we all know it’s for the adults, not the kids. (Actually, has anyone ever gotten to eat a piece of wedding cake?  JUST WONDERING, I’m not bitter.)

With that in mind, here’s what happened.  

I sliced a piece of cake, took a lick of the frosting, watched glittery stars cascade across my vision because the frosting was incredible, which it shouldn’t have been, considering what bakery the cake came from (hint - it was probably made by a disgruntled person in a navy t-shirt with a little sun on the pocket).  

Then I walked through a door, which is normally not that hard for me, but is something I am apparently incapable of doing while eating cake (Particularly spiked cake — there is NO evidence that the cake was spiked other than the aforementioned cake-for-adults thing and my own erratic behavior.  It’s just a theory.).  

I dropped a glob of frosting on the lintel (which is the same thing as a door frame* — it’s okay, I didn’t know what it meant either).  

And lost my mind.    

I’ve never laughed so hard at anything as I did at that cake on the doorframe.  After trying to contain my excessive guffaws, I gave up and actually spewed cake (fortunately I was outside by this point) all over my own face.  

The image of the frosting being squished by the closing door was somehow too much, so I scraped it up and tossed it into the grass, where it remains to this day.  I checked when I left work and it was still there, woeful and white.  

All of this would have been alright, except that I now had cake all over my shirt and face and was clutching what was left of it in my grubby hand, because I was laughing too hard to finish it off.  Even that could have been dealt with in a responsible way if I’d paused a moment and taken a few deep breaths, but instead, I thought it’d be a great idea to go talk to my boss.  Yes, right then.  Brilliant, I know.  Thankfully he wasn’t in his office.  But two coworkers were in the hallway.  They asked me what was so funny, and I told them, with my last remaining shred of dignity, that absolutely nothing had happened that was worth hearing.  Keep in mind that I was laughing so hard I couldn’t talk.  Of course they knew something funny had happened, and they insisted I share the joy.  And because I’m a genius, I told them exactly what had happened, explaining all the while that “See?  See?  See?  It’s not funny!  Ba ha ha ha ha!!”  (Plus, I was still just holding the cake...just holding it.).  They developed concerned expressions and backed away and have not spoken to me since.    

And now I’m writing about it and sharing it with even more people, because it’s still not funny.  It’s so unfunny that it’s funny.  Kind of like climbing Mt. Everest as a parapalegic is funny.** Funny like that.

*A lintel is actually the piece of doorframe at the top of the door.  I don’t know what the thing you trip over is.  The frosting was not on the lintel.  The cake was sketchy, but it didn’t defy any rules of physics.

**Hint - it’s not funny.