The Biggest Peanut In The Gallery

Okay:

I remember one time I was in math class with this buddy of mine I had known since elementary school. We had ironically ended up at the same high school and in the same Algebra class with this Nigerian woman whose name I cannot remember. Anyways, she was apparently mentoring a young white woman studying to be a teacher. I think her name was Ms. Brown.

Ms. Brown was a tall, skinny blond who didn't talk much and seemed to be scared to death of us. Also, she was at least seven months pregnant and unmarried, which we all thought was pretty strange for an educated, thin, not-wholly-unattractive white woman. On top of all that, she was a smoker. We would all congregate on the front steps of the building and smoke cigarettes before, during and after school. Sometimes she would come out there and smoke alone off in some corner. We all kind of looked at her with disgust. We might have been delinquents but we all knew it was bad to smoke when you looked like you could give birth any day. It said so right on the side of the damn box: "Smoking Can Cause Birth Defects."

Anyway, one day our Nigerian teacher decided to let Ms. Brown have at us and administer an uninterrupted lesson on some Algebraic business. She went to the chalkboard and started drawing her letters and numbers and what have you. I was sitting next to my buddy at the time. I don't think we were high, but we might have been. Then, as she was walking across the front of the room, her legs flew out from under her and she landed squarely on her ass with a resounding thud. The Nigerian and a handful of concerned students flew to her aide. You could hear the collective gasp and numerous whispers of, "Are you all right?" and "Should we call someone?"

The silence was broken by loud and hysterical laughter coming from...you guessed it, me.

It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I had never seen anyone fall like that before without having been pushed or having slipped on ice or motor oil or something. It was almost cartoonish, like something out of a Naked Gun movie. I didn't think people just fell like that in real life. I mean, this woman legs flew up in the air. She was literally airborne for half a second. And then WHAM! right on her ass. And to be honest, the fact that she was pregnant made it even funnier.

I looked over at my buddy. He was also laughing, but at least he had the common decency to hold it in. Tears were rolling down his eyes and his face was bright pink, but he didn't make a sound. I on the other hand had fallen out of my chair and was holding my stomach. Finally, he gave in and we both were in hysterics.

"The both of you, get out of here!" screamed the Nigerian.

If we weren't already high, I think we went to go get high after that. Incidentally, she was fine and as far as I know, so was her unborn baby. If anything was wrong with him, it probably had more to do with her smoking than her little fall.


Another time, this same friend and I were at a Burger King on K Street after school. It's one of those two-story restaurants with a window that looks down onto the busy thoroughfare. This time, I remember distinctly being very high. That was the reason we had come to Burger King in the first place. While we were demolishing our Whoppers we noticed an old lady slowly, painstakingly, making her way into the restaurant with a walker. We giggled then returned our attention to our sandwiches or whatever random conversation we were having.

Minutes later we saw that ambulances had arrived and EMTs were rushing into the building. Having finished our sandwiches, for I doubt we would have moved if we hadn't, we darted to the stairs to see what was going on.

There at the bottom of stairs lay the old lady next to her toppled walker, moaning.

Well, I'm ashamed to tell you, but if we had stayed there any longer someone probably would've had to pry us off the floor. We collapsed in a fit of wild laughter. This was now, above the capsizing of Ms. Brown, the absolute funniest thing either of us had ever seen.

My buddy looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "Who in the fuck told that old lady she could make it up these steps?"


Another time I was by myself at the Potomac Avenue metro station waiting for my girlfriend to come pick me up. I called her from a pay phone to see what was taking her so long. (Remember pay phones?) On the phone next to me was a thirty-something white woman with long blond hair. She was visibly upset.

When I saw the tears in her eyes I told my girlfriend to hold on, I wanted to hear what this woman was saying.

"You have to come get me!" she exclaimed. "I'm serious. This is not a joke. You have to come get me!"

"Oh my God," I said into the phone. "This lady is trippin'."

"They are trying to kill me. Unless you want this to be the last time you hear from me, you need to come and get me right now."

Then I noticed that she had a suitcase sitting close by. She wiped tears from her eyes. "I am going to get on this fucking bus, you motherfucker, and I hope you're satisfied. I'm a dead woman."

By this time I could not contain myself. The only reason I didn't laugh out loud was that I thought in her state she might actually try to hit me. But I sure was giggling my ass of. "This bitch is crazy," I whispered to my girlfriend.

"Fine. I'm getting on the fucking bus!" She slammed the phone down. Then she looked me in the eye and said, "Fuck you."

Then she wiped her face, picked up her suitcase and got on the bus.

A few times I've thought about that woman and wondered whether or not someone was really after her or if she was mentally ill and that's why the person on the other end of the phone was in no rush to come to her aid. Either way, it was some really funny shit to me then. It's still kind of funny, actually. Except these days I would probably not laugh in the woman's face. Hell, I might even offer to help her with her suitcase.


Thanks for reading.

GOBAMA!

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Confession: I once drove all the way to DC from North Carolina to spend the weekend with a lady friend. Before I left Durham, I stopped at the Burger King for 2 Whoppers. By the time I pulled up to her apartment complex, I could barely kiss her on the cheek before I sprinted to her bathroom where I stayed for forty-five minutes. To her credit, the evening went on as planned after that. Now that's love!