Serious Considerations

I live near Washington DC., the City of Protests. We're talking big protests. Notable ones. Widely televised ones. Controversial ones and traditional ones. You name it, there's sure to be one for you.

This is why I was a bit jaded when I discovered a bunch of nutcases calling themselves "MuddyUm editors" out roaming the city streets with bullhorns, yakking on about laughing.

Laughing? Seriously?

Yes, laughing. Apparently, these people are pro-laughers, or laugh makers, and they take a strong position on the matter. "You'd rather be laughing!" they contend, "Wouldn't you? WOULDN'T YOU RATHER BE LAUGHING??"

Give me a break, MuddyOnes. I would NOT.

I, a devout curmudgeon, had zero time for this crap. All I wanted to do was get my car from downtown to Georgetown, then home. These whack jobs were making that impossible.

It started as soon as I got off the Key Bridge, coming in on Rt. 66 from Virginia. I could sense something was wrong right away. Traffic was much slower than usual for that time on a Saturday in October. I got a tinge worried. Was something wrong?

Something was wrong, alright.

Within minutes, some of the other cars ahead were honking their horns. What was going on??

I stuck my head out the window. Folks in front of me got out of their cars. Then I did. That's when I heard the shouting and commotion.

For real? A protest? I'd checked the local news earlier. No big event was on the schedule for that day. All locals steer clear of the city on a protest day unless they're protesting. You would, too.

What in the — ?

I started walking toward the sound with the others. We were perplexed. Hopefully, it wasn't something dangerous. You never know.

That's when I saw them. The MuddyUm people.

What are MuddyUms, you ask? Hard to describe. They are human beings, but they're laughing. Hysterically laughing.

I'm not into laughing. It's for kids. Or cartoons. Or late-night TV. Or voters looking at their ballots — sometimes. Other times they cry.

"Who are these people?" I asked the guy next to me. He shrugged.

"They look happy," he said.

They look deranged is what they look like.

I didn't say that out loud. I'm not a jerk. I'm a sourpuss. There's a difference.

"Well, happy or not, they're blocking traffic," I told the guy. "I'm going to see what I can do about this."

I marched right toward that laughing crowd.

As I got closer, I could see what appeared to be the antithesis of a DC protest. What was this thing? There were endless tables lining the sides of the road. They were stacked with copies of a book — the MuddyOnes' first anthology. They had huge banners strung across trees.

STORIES FROM MUDDYUM!

FUNNIEST PUB IN HISTORY!

FUNNIER THAN NEANDERTHALS AND AUSTRALOPITHECUS!

Gracious. These people were bananas. Speaking of which, tables were piled high with brunch — fruit, omelets, and waffles. There were silver platters of croissants and frog legs. There were two massive statues, one a Neanderthal, one an Australopithecus — spouting orange juice and champagne from their mouths into a tub for self-serve. Vampires were handing out dolphin balloons and lollipops — something to do with the book. There were signs 'Free Underwear — Clean and Dirty' on tables piled with undergarments.

None of it made any sense — a spectacle.

What I can't really convey is how over-the-top the crowd was. It was almost nauseating — for a grump like me.

Everybody and their grandmother were peering down at those books and laughing their asses off — lungs, brains, common sense, too. I stood in the very center of the whole scene and scanned every bit of it by the inch.

How could this be happening in Washington DC? We're stoic here. Grouchy for governance's sake. Caustically serious. Bellicose in the name of politics. Irritated. Name-callers for the sport of it. Inauthentically hopeless or shocked, depending. We're shifty in a pissed-off way. Pompous without cracking a smile. We HATE humor. That's the bane of our wretched biological existence.

Then, in one fateful moment, the very seed of my sour grape constitution was severely threatened. I was handed the book.

If I told you I wanted to cram that book deep into the heart of antipathy, I would be a truthful malcontent. Yet, somehow the most nonsensical brush of inspiration overtook me, and I opened the book.

I scanned the pages. I settled on a story, then another, and another. That's when the world as I knew it shifted in one seismological jolt — I went from growler to howler.

I laughed so hard my stomach spilled out of my skin. My brain oozed from its skull. My eyes popped onto my cheeks and dangled.

This book was FUNNY.

It finally dawned on me these MuddyOnes were a challenge to doom and gloom. They were champions of the giggle. This was humor's finest hour.

I asked some of them why they had done this — written something so funny and light-hearted.

"We wanted to spread smiles in a world where it's easy to be bummed out. If you like what our editors did for this one, wait til you see what our writers do for our next one."

That sold me.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I frantically bought up stacks of the book. I wanted to rock the world out of its sorrows. I wanted to scream the question to anyone who would listen —

WOULDN'T YOU RATHER BE LAUGHING?

I, the curmudgeon, would. You would too.

Thank you to Holly See for helping me clean this up.

Wouldn't You Rather Be Laughing? Coming soon — MuddyUm's much anticipated first comedy anthology. Available on Lulu and Amazon.