“I’m tired of
letting everything get to me!” Sheila
randomly said to her friend at lunch. “Nothing
matters in the end, and I’m sick of being upset all the time by things I can’t
change!”
“Then
don’t be,” her friend answered as he sipped his soda and continued to read his
newspaper. “All emotions are choices: no
one goes into your mind and makes you feel anything.”
“That’s
– ” she started to argue, then the figurative light bulb went off above her
head, “absolutely GENIUS! All I have to
do is choose to be happy all the time, and nothing will go wrong ever
again!”
“I
didn’t say that – ” he started.
“You’re
the best – bye!” She skipped out of the
break room and resumed her duties at the Returns Counter.
Twenty
minutes later…
“Every
time I return something here, you always make life difficult; what do you mean,
you can’t take it back because it’s been used?
I told you already: we used it, it’s not what we want anymore, now I
want my money back! It’s that simple; do
you really need me to show you how to do your job here, sweetheart?” The customer finally stopped, waiting for an
answer.
Sheila
stared at him. “You – are – HILARIOUS!”
“Wha…?”
“I never noticed until now that every time you come here provides me with unending
amusement! It’s an absolute joy to hear
what you’ll come up with next! Go ahead,
give me another one.” She propped her
elbows on the counter and leaned her chin on her hands, waiting expectantly.
“You
sassin’ me?”
Sheila
dissolved into hysterics.
“‘Sassin’!’ I love it!” Her manager removed her from the Returns
Counter for the rest of her shift.
* * * * * * * * * * *
At
a holiday dinner with extended family, Sheila was asked the question she always
was asked at those events:
“Sheila,
babe,” her distant cousin said, “when you getting married, huh? Pretty girl like you, it’s not right – you
ain’t getting any younger, you know.”
“AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!” Sheila’s laughter struck fear into the heart
of her distant cousin and all who were present.
She wiped tears from her eyes, then burst into gales of laughter again.
Her
distant cousin awkwardly laughed in reaction: “What, what did I say?”
“‘Married!’” Sheila hooted. “‘Pretty!’
‘Younger!’ You’re killing me!”
“What,
I’m just saying, the ol’ clock is ticking – ”
“‘Clock!’” Sheila buried her face in a dishtowel and
howled with laughter into it. She then
raised her head and looked at her distant cousin. “OK, I’m good now.” She began howling into the towel again; her
distant cousin patted her on the shoulder and moved on.
* * * * * * * * * * *
In
traffic, a car cut off Sheila just as they both were stopping at a red
light. The other driver checked his rear
view mirror to confirm that she was flipping him off, and was a bit disturbed
to see her laughing and banging the steering wheel with joy. The other driver had the sensation that he
somehow had become the butt of someone else’s joke, and his world became a strange
and unfamiliar place.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“So,
how did your experiment go?” Sheila’s
friend asked when they were next on break together.
“Experiment?”
“You
know, where you’d choose to be happy and everything would be all right from
then on.”
“Oh,
that – amazingly well,” she said. “I
haven’t been upset in days, not once.”
“You
did hear this morning that we’re not getting raises until who knows
when, right?”
“Yeah,
that just made realize that I really should get started on that freelance
graphic design business that I always keep talking about and never getting
around to doing. Plus I found it amusing
that our salaries are getting frozen while the CEO is this close to
indictment. He’s only hurting himself
with a move like that; what a character!”
“Can
you share with me whatever you did to your mind? I want some.”
“You’re
the one who suggested it in the first place!”
“I
was trying to stop your complaining.”
“And
thanks to you, instead of finding the cloud in every silver lining, I now find
the pure hilariousness in every single thing.
I never realized before that the world is completely filled with
comedians!”
