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So, here’s the truth. When eavesdropping on after-dark conversations taking place on nearby balconies becomes a pass-time, you know you have reached a new low on the spectrum of creative entertainment. You might as well also admit that you have achieved new heights on the scale of abject boredom.
But, guess what? It can happen. Even in Costa Rica where everyone seems to be in a party mood. Peals of laughter bouncing from pillar to post. Laughter the order of the day. Close encounters the order of the night. Everyone all coupled up. It’s down right depressing. Where do these people get off……….all this gaiety and frivolity!
Don’t they know what a mess this world is in? Don’t they ‘get’ how tangled a web we’ve woven for ourselves? Well, actually, m-a-y-be they do. Maybe that’s precisely why they’re here. Doing what they are doing. Letting it all go. Maybe they do remember what a bunch of crap there is in our world, our lives, their lives. And, maybe this is their way to forget it all. Take a sabbatical. Just step back and forget it.
Well, you know what? I think I can sign on for that strategy. I didn’t bring my magic eraser to Costa Rica with me this time. The one that rubs out all the problems of the world. But, next time. The next time I come down here, I do not plan to sit in the dark on my balcony grabbing portions of conversations which float through the air and only serve to depress me anyway. I plan to come as a participant. Not an observer.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll just up and go join them. I’ll just trot right over to those balcony parties on the ground floors and I’ll just let ‘em know I’m happy to be joining them. Then smile. Smile big. Try to make them think I’m a party guy. (Of course, I’d rather crash the 2nd or 3rd floor balconies but I’d need a 40’ extension ladder for one thing, and I don’t do ladders).
Anyway, I gotta find a way to fit in with this new crowd right away. Like quick. Because, at this point people are staring at me. Wondering “where did this joker come from” ? And that joker reference got me to thinking (since I knew what they were thinking).
Since all these people do at these balcony parties is laugh, laugh, laugh, I’ll just whip out a couple of my guaranteed-to-get-a-big-laugh jokes. Then they’ll think I’m cool. You know. Maybe even invite me to join the party. So now that I’ve got this new strategy of ’no more eavesdropping”, I figure I’ve gotta get serious. About being a jokester.
So, I thought and I thought. Running through my inventory of funny stories. I quickly identified 3 or 4 that would most likely pass the muster of ‘not totally obscene’ and would be safe for a liberated crowd of occasionally foul-mouthed adults. But there was a problem.
Each time I repeated one of these jokes in my head, I laughed so hard my eyes leaked and my stomach hurt. I was cracking myself up so much I decided “Who needs it?.”
I don’t have to crash a party of unknowns. I can sit here on my own balcony, ignoring those other balcony conversations and totally make myself laugh so hard I cry. Actually, none of my top ten jokes would have cut the mustard anyway for so much as a “PG-14” rating.
So, …oops…Wait! I think I just heard something. It’s starting to sound like a bedtime conversation over on the 3rd floor balcony, in the building over to the right of me. Wow, things are getting serious over there.
Sorry, I gotta cut this short. More later.
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