(1) I watched some bad movies late one night over the holiday weekend. One particularly stands out as being so funny-bad that its hysterical. I don't know how they had the nerve to release it! First, a dead body blinked. A BIG blink. Then the "dead" actor did it again. It was SO obvious that another actor leaned over and fumbled the "dead" guys eyes shut. This same movie had a military funeral. It showed a guy playing taps. It showed a LONG close-up of the trumpet. Thats when I noticed that while I could hear Taps, none of the actor's fingers were even on the buttons, much less moving! I don't know why I find this so funny, but I do.
(2) Samantha called me from vacation to tell me about an especially interesting moment. Sam was in a club, one of those invitation-only couches-everywhere kinda trendy up-scale places with a great view of the city. She was there with a female friend. Sam went to the bathroom. While she was in there, a small group of Arab males tried to intimidate her friend into giving up the couch with the good view. When Sam came back, her friend was all tense and stressed (but she hadn't given up the couch). Sam was in a vivaciously-sparkly mood (which she usually is) and just laughed. Leaning over, she whispered to her friend "let me show you how to cope, because frowning like that will give you wrinkles".
Imagine the scene: two young twenty-something females on the couch with the good view facing off across a coffee-table with three forty-something Arab males on the couch with the bad view. Make sure you imagine Sam as the real-life flesh version of the most beautiful Irish Fairy possible. Wavy-shiny-long copper-hair, almost-turqoise-blue eyes, translucent-pale-skin. (Artists beg her to pose for them and random strangers touch her hair at the mall, totally entranced. She's really that gorgeous, but the best thing about her is that we can laugh until our sides literally ache).
Sam, wearing those strappy little sandles that are SO uncomfortable but SO cute, propped her feet on the coffee-table and then slipped off the sandles. Bare feet/soles pointed at the Arabs. She wiggled her toes at them maliciously. Arabs leaped up and tried to cover her feet with magazines! She laughed at them, and flipped the magazines off. I can see the exact tilt of her head while she did it. Its a wonder they didn't attack her! As it was, they went totally insane. Flailing and screaming in Arabic, laced with enough English to get the point across. This only amused her farther. Sam interupted their tirade with a Southern drawl "You may treat women like dogs in your country, but that isn't how it is here. Get used to it, or go home." More spittle&foaming from male Arabs followed. She let them get really worked up, and then announced loudly "I've decided that you no longer have the right to address me. Move along, or I'll have you thrown out." dismissing them with a flip of her hand and proceeding to completely ignore them. In shock and defeat, two of the male Arabs immediately departed to the other side of the room. The third lurked a few feet behind her and just kept muttering to himself "Who are you? Where are you from? Who are you?" over and over for the next two hours.
For some reason, I laugh everytime I imagine her polished little toes flipping off the magazines and wiggling maliciously while she tilts her head and laughs. No one does it like quite she does :)
Laughter really is the best medicine, isn't it? :)
Not to mention that living well (with lots of laughter) is the best revenge :)
One point I have to make (as a former trumpet player):
To play taps, you don't need fingers. I know it looked funny but it actually was realistic. (To me it would look really funny if he was using his fingers!)