'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

EARLY MORNING HOTEL HUMOR

Usually I write my column early on Saturday morning. It’s the only time of the week when I have some free time to type out humorous thoughts. So when Saturday rolls around, I get out of bed around 6 a.m., put on a pot of coffee, and go to my little basement office and turn on the computer. Then I spend the next couple of hours staring at the computer screen and saying, “OK, Mr. Computer, what have you got for me this week that’s funny?”

If you’ve read this column for any length of time, you know that on many Saturday mornings, Mr. Computer has nothing funny to tell me.

This particular column is also being composed on Saturday morning. But it’s not 6 a.m. in my little basement office. At this moment it is 2:26 a.m. in my little hotel room in Albany, New York. I’m sitting on a hotel bed with my laptop computer, typing away. I’m here for an important day-long business seminar that begins promptly at 8 a.m., and what I should be doing at this moment, what I desperately WANT to be doing at this moment, is sleeping soundly.

The reason I am sitting up in bed in the middle of the night typing away is because of the very loud and shrill sounds of approximately 50 teenage girls who are laughing, giggling, and squealing in adjacent hotel rooms. You see, it seems that my room is the only one on this floor not occupied tonight by members of a school group on a field trip. (The group? My guess: the Giggling & Squealing Club of America.) Apparently the group’s chaperones are on a different floor…in a hotel in Schenectady.

Also, it seems this hotel was constructed in strict accord with the state building code—that is, the state building code of 1762, back when an elk hide stretched between two sticks was considered an acceptable wall. Let’s just say the walls and doors of this hotel don’t block sound waves very well, which actually helps me a bit, because when I bang on the wall and say, “Hey, trying to sleep over here,” the gigglers and squealers can hear me just fine. They reply, “Sorry, mister!” and then quiet down long enough for me to doze off, before once again bursting forth with a loud, “Omigod! Did Kevin really SAY THAT?!” followed by more laughing, giggling, and squealing.

So I finally gave up trying to sleep. I might as well work on a column, so I turned on my computer and started typing. But if Mr. Computer is often less than humorous at 6 a.m., he is absolutely no help at 2:26 a.m.—no wait, it’s now 3:05 a.m.

I must say that I am really, really groggy. I’m nott typpping so goodly, and my thought processes are nott so goodly either, especially the kitchen slippers baloney sandwich infield fly rule bubblegum. Also, it’s, um, getting even laterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—

Sorry, I must have dozed off. What time is it? Oh wow, it’s now 5:15 a.m., and the hotel is completely silent. I should probably turn off my computer—after first wiping the drool off the keyboard—and then role over and sleep for another hour or so before I have to get ready for my business seminar.

But I’m not going to go back to sleep. The most appropriate thing I can do right now is get up, take a deep breath, and yell as loudly as I can, “Omigod! Did Kevin really SAY THAT?!” at least 10 times.

Mr. Computer told me it will be funny.

©2006