Glass

The other day I had a conversation with a friend that had me laughing so hard, I choked. We were discussing the hilarity of the apparent mystery of glass to dogs, and how no matter how many times they run face-first into a glass door, they still don’t seem to understand the concept. Glass is clear. They don’t see it. They crash violently into something they can’t see. It’s too funny.

So he was telling me a story about how he had a glass door in his house that separated one area of the house from the other, and if the glass was clean, everyone in the house would crash into it, from his dog to his wife and kid.

Already I was laughing because the only thing better than seeing someone run into a glass door is seeing it from the other side, and watching their face scrunch and their body react, which to me, ranks right up there with some of the funniest things in the world.

But his comment on it was priceless.

He attributed to his son a confused voice and said, "Whoa, where’d this forcefield come from?"

I lost it. I was laughing so hard I was choking because that’s exactly it! It’s this invisible forcefield that stuns people and dogs when they run into it.

It’s been stuck in my head ever since. I periodically will just start giggling when I think about it.

Knowing that my brother and I share the same warped sense of humor, I thought he’d appreciate the forcefield comment, so I started telling him the story. I got to the point where the kid crashes into the glass, is taken aback, and I started to quote, "Whoa, where’d—" when my brother cut me off.

He said, "A forcefield! Out of nowhere! There must be Kingons present!"

Dude. Have you ever laughed so hard you were afraid your intestines would just start shooting out of your bellybutton like silly string? That was me. I had to quickly shove a finger in my navel to keep from being disemboweled from laughter.

It’s not enough that my brother had the same brilliant forcefield imagery come to him, but he took it up a level and made it deadly, geeky, and science-fictiony, which probably didn’t apply to my friend’s son, but anyone who runs into glass probably has their own set of nerdy thoughts that explain it away. These were my brother’s.

And he capped it off with something I don’t quite know if I can explain, but I’ll try.

Years ago, we were watching an episode of one of Steve Irwin’s shows, and he was in an African village hunting down a black mamba snake, one of the (or is it THE) deadliest, venomous snakes on the planet, and he actually caught one that had taken a village hostage. He grabbed the mamba by its tail and his body was arched in an attempt to put as much distance between the venomous fangs of this snake and his vulnerable pink flesh. However, the snake reared up and tried to bite him, lunging straight for Mr. Irwin’s balls, and my brother and I both yelled out in horror.

Steve Irwin, in his flamboyant fashion, looked right into the camera and said, "I couldda died!" As you can imagine, my brother and I found this not only endearing, but hilarious.

Since then, whenever anyone does anything remarkably stupid and life threatening, in our best Australian accent we will yell out, "I couldda died!" And then laughter ensues.

So, back to the forcefield joke.

My brother said, "A forcefield! Out of nowhere! There must be Klingons present!"

*Cue navel plugging by me*

And he added, "I couldda died!"

I very nearly did. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in years.