Funny guy...

(Anne, I sat down to get more of my committed words in my novel but had to write this instead...does it count?)

I don't remember when or why it came up, but this summer when we were camping with our old schools, Leisha said that I was a lucky one because I married someone with a sense of humor. Turns out I am an auditory learner and sometimes I don't really understand something until I either hear it or say it out loud. Since she said that, I've thought about how much laughing with Chris means to me. I have always known he is funny, of course...and I believe if when I was single I was asked to rank the typical qualities I look for in a match, I would have likely ranked sense of humor as numero uno. So I shouldn't have really learned anything different from that remark, but it refreshed gratitude in me at that moment for that quality/talent Chris possesses. 

One of my favorite things to laugh about is when Chris pretends he is the expert at something. He never backs down, ever. He is very clever in his ability to, for example, speak fluent Spanish. Hypothetical example follows:

"Mi casa es su casa." 
What are you talking about?
I just said, "I want some dinner" in Spanish.
"That isn't how you say that."
"It is how I say it, how do you say it?" 
"Quiero cenar." 
"Well that is one way to say that." or even funnier, "that is what I said!" 

You'd be surprised how long this can go on. He can go all night on three Spanish phrases pretending like he's a native Mexican. The other day he was relying on Tae Kwon Do Japanese counting to convince me he is pretty much Japanese. I am convinced. He can count to ten...and he can say, "Domo arigato," and I'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with the song by Styx.

The same mock cockiness applies to EVERYTHING else in the whole world. Sometimes he isn't even trying to be funny, but it is funny. Like when he decided in five minutes at Lowes he was going to start a garden in mid-JUNE. Now, I don't know much about gardening, but I do know that you don't start a tomato, lettuce, carrot, corn (yes, corn!!), onion, beet, cucumber and radish garden in mid-June in a grow box that you have spent 7 years burdening the contained weeds with Round-up spray. Undaunted, he and the girls marveled over how tall the corn was getting in spite of weeks without water and most of the other plants already giving up the ghost. He banked on that corn coming up clear into October when it was a good three feet tall. I thought it was pretty endearing and hilarious. Whenever I would try and point out that maybe they had started too late, he is quick to remind me that I know nothing and he knows everything. Now it is February and he is already talking about this summer's garden grandeur but I am unconvinced that he has done any actual learning still...as it turns out gardens don't grow from charm alone. 

I think the hardest I laughed in a very long time was really recently when Chris claimed he was pretty much a professional dog trainer. I just laughed alone here in my office for a good three minutes trying to write this. Have you ever met Stone!? Stone! The dog that Chris always claims is perfectly behaved and trained but literally never moved an inch unless it was due to his own conviction to do so? Stone, the dog that eventually Chris decided was hard of hearing because he would lolly gag around the neighborhood with us shouting after him and completely ignore us? Stone, the dog that pulled as if in a tug of war match the entire time he was ever on leash? Stone, yes. The fruit of Chris' dog training labors. Yes. It was funny because he was serious and I couldn't hardly eek out my rebuttal but he knew he was ridiculous and eventually he laughed with me. The next day, I asked, "What was that you claimed to be a pro at yesterday?" He pretended he didn't know to what I referred. Then he quietly said, "That I am an expert dog trainer." And there I went again. So funny. Can't get enough of that idea! Since then I have noticed as we progressively head farther down the path of Penny owning our lives that Chris is now referring to his successful dog training efforts proven by his childhood dog, Scooter. The question is, did Chris actually single handedly train Scooter? If you ask him he did...and also, can an experience training a dog when you are eight possibly equal relevant experience thirty years later?

I remind Chris every so often that he doesn't have to feel stuck in his career choice. I'll say, "We can live in an apartment or with my parents or in a trailer and I can work part time and you can do anything...you want to build chicken coops or install finish carpentry or answer questions about anything in any department at Lowes (he definitely knows WAY more than the people who work in any of the Lowes departments and he hates it if they try and tell him otherwise)." He always appreciates the potential freedom but he's always liked more than hated his jobs and so it goes. So anyway, he is obsessed with a show, "Storage Wars" where people bid on storage units that are past due on rent payments at an auction. They walk with the contents of the lockers and of course score things that are super impressive and worth a ton of money. Anyway, so the other night after he had unloaded his fourth unit into our garage and had picked through it all and was amped about the stuff he was going to sell, I said, "Maybe you can be a thrift store owner one day!" I really am not above that at all, but I was joking. 100%. Not serious. He goes, "I think that's it. That is what I want to do." I laughed and laughed, though I know he wasn't joking. 

The other night, I had seen a commercial for a show on MTV about perfect matches. People underwent some intense interviews and personality and compatibility testing and they find their perfect match. So we were lying in bed and I said, "I wonder what would happen if we took a compatibility test--" I didn't even finish my sentence and Chris said, "Done. Not. Compatible." Bwahahahahaha. AMEN! He kept going with it and I just kept laughing and agreeing. 

We are two truly incompatible people in love...and we even can be pretty convincingly not in love if you ask those who spend much time around us. 

Anyway, if he weren't super hot and hilarious I'd have nothing to go on. Thank goodness for those two things! Happy Valentine's Day!