Straw Sharing Laughter

There’s a lot of heavy stuff happening these days and a lot of commentary being written about it all. After three nights/days with the kids after a week at youth camp, though, I’m too tired and unfocused to think about anything serious. And so…I will share a story from camp last week that still makes me laugh.

Wednesday night was senior night. Not being able to find where the rest of the seniors were celebrating, Rebecca took our two seniors to McDonalds. I asked them to bring me an iced mocha so that I could have coffee the next morning.

Because we both woke up late on Thursday, Rebecca and I ended up in the apartment alone. As I was preparing to leave, I opened the refrigerator to get my coffee. I asked Rebecca if they’d gotten me a straw. She said no. Then she said, “You can use my straw if you want to.”

Her used straw was in her used cup on the coffee table in front of the couch on which she had been sleeping.

I said, “Wow, Rebecca. Sharing a straw is a new level of friendship.”

She sang her response: “Sharing a straw is love.”

While she finished getting ready, I finished the song chorus that she’d started:

“Sharing a straw is love,
It’s a special symbol of,
Friendship from above,
Yes, sharing a straw is love.”

Choosing not to accept Rebecca’s straw offer, I walked to breakfast simply carrying my coffee…which was a really good thing because Rebecca and I spent the whole walk singing and laughing. Rebecca would make up a verse about the virtues of sharing a straw and I’d chime in with the chorus.

Neither of us remembers the verses. They were spontaneous, out of Rebecca’s crazy head. But we both remember the chorus, and we claim it as one of our most successful hits.

We made up other songs last week as well. We sang about stripes, ear lobes and parks, plastic baggies, camp, and more. And on Sunday, we sang about my nephew losing his pants and about red shoes stomping. Amelia and my nephews requested a Rebecca/Deanna performance.

Rebecca and I are dangerous together. She brings out the silly in me. I give permission for the silly in her to shine. We feed off of each other’s thoughts and we make each other laugh. Sometimes last week we both laughed so hard that our stomachs hurt, our eyes filled with tears, and the veins in our foreheads poked out.

And the laughter was good.

It was very, very good.

When is the last time you made up a silly song? Lived as if you were in a musical? Laughed so hard that you cried?

With everything that seems to be going wrong in this world, there are so many things going right…the simplest of which is not necessarily straw sharing, but laughter, friendship, and love.