It has been a long time since I put pen to paper.  No I’m not ignoring you, but laughter seems harder to come by…excluding my paycheck of course.

It seemed only a few years ago, I could write funny stories with great relish. Now I start each day as if I’m looking at life through a circus mirror. You know the ones I’m talking about, you’ve seen them countless times and laughed. You’d stand there with your kids, pointing, looking at yourself bloated and out of focus, with a huge head and would then double over laughing. Except now I’m getting the same effect in front of my bathroom mirror and I’m only in a towel.

Nothing wipes away a smile more than seeing a caricature of yourself becoming…well, you. Recently because of a bum knee, I rented an electric scooter to traverse an amusement park. As my young acting wife and daughter energetically went from one roller coaster ride to another, I could be found sitting on my little zippy ride looking like an octogenarian. Getting bored and feeling self conscious, I found myself whistling over to the dipping dot ice cream shack for a space age treat.

I still don’t understand how an ice cream can be so therapeutic on a scorching day, but it miraculously minimizes even the embarrassment of using a geriatric  scooter. I felt like a kid. As I ate my treat and licked the spoon, I swung my legs and had not a care in the world.

I beg to differ with experts that say, “the first thing that begins to go is the hearing.” I believe it’s pride. By the late afternoon I had no shame if anyone was laughing or mocking me, I was popping wheelies and beeping my pathetic little scooter horn with abandon. It was extremely satisfying. By the end of the long day, I even reverted back to my childhood. My wife kept saying over and over again, “We can get another little scooter tomorrow Johnny, let’s go home now to beddy bye and night night.”

I’m not saying electric scooters are the cure for what ills the earth, but wouldn’t road rage be relegated to giggles and snorts if an angry voice were to be followed by the piercing sound of a Fisher Price horn?

Today I’ve decided to find my laughs riding a scooter at Walmart; now that’s a two-fer if I ever heard one.