Real Life Black Comedy

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Ever have these moments? A good friend/ex-girlfriend of mine is currently institutionalized for chemical dependency/chronic depression/other crap. Has been for about a week, and the time before she went in was really hard on all of us who care about her, and of course for her, too. She was using more and more to cover her depression, and during times of such high stress, one must laugh or go insane.

I remember one day not long before we convinced her that the hospital would be a good idea, she was sitting and talking to me about it, and she said “I think… I might have a drug problem.” We looked at each other for about half a second, and then just cracked up. We had to. It was also hilarious, though, and I think you would find it so if you knew the kind of crap this girl was doing. Understatement of the century, akin to saying that Wilt Chamberlain might have played some basketball here and there.

Another one was while I was on the phone with her, when she was already in the institution, and she said, in response to something that happened next to her, “I seek asylum!” It then dawned on her what she had said and set off a giggle-fit.

By the way, this time of detox and working with therapists and groups has done a lot of good for her. She’s already much happier and working hard toward getting at the root of her problems and moving past them, so don’t worry too much about that.

Anyway, does anyone else have any of these moments to share? Real life black comedy, where it’s just so screwed up that you can’t help but laugh?

LC

2

Yeap-I actually have two stories that fit the bill.
Here’s the better of the two.

First, a little background.
In 1987 my mother contracted an especially virulent form of breast cancer.
It was only 6 weeks from diagnosis to death.
One of her final requests was to be cremated and scattered over the woods that were next to the house.
As my father owned a private plane, this seemed like an easy enough request to fulfill.
Come the day of the scattering, one of dad’s pilot buddy’s took us up.
Dad was in the passenger seat and I sat in the back.
The plane buzzed low and dad threw mom’s ashes out the window.
Over half of which, of course, promptly blew back in, coating me and the back seat.
As soon as we landed, dad looked at me and said, “Go get the dustbuster and vacuum your mother up.”
As soon as he said it, he realized how strange it sounded and we all went into convulsive giggles.
I’m sure his friend thought we’d lost our collective minds.