Camp Pucker

All the members of my immediate family can find things so hilariously funny that we get, as we say, "hysterical."  If you do not know us, or from a distance, you might think we were, in fact, crying.  Our faces contort uncontrollably.  Our laughter sounds like sobs.  We gasp for breath.  We cry real tears.  In a group, we feed into each other's "hysteria," laughing because the other person is laughing and because he or she is having so much trouble explaining what's funny without getting even more hysterical.  But a group, I've found, isn't essential to this phenomenon. 

I was working on my income taxes today in preparation for an appointment with a tax preparer on Tuesday.  Volunteer tax preparers, trained by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), prepare tax returns free through the senior centers in Boulder and other Colorado towns.  I don't know if this service is offered nationwide, but I used the service for the first time last year on the recommendation of my friend Paula and found it very helpful...and easy on the budget.

I have been doing a bit of freelance editing, so thought I'd better go prepared with a list of possible business-related deductions.  I was looking, in particular, for printer paper and printer ink expenditures and knew many of these would be scattered throughout purchases of org milk, grnd trky, salmon flts and acid reducr I had made at Walmart.  [Note to self:  Have these business-related items rung up separately from now on].  I'm very short of work space in this one-room cabin, so was finding it difficult to sort through all these receipts I was balancing on one knee without having them fall on the floor and was getting increasingly frustrated with the entire operation.

About this time I spotted an item on one receipt that caught my attention:  Camp Pucker.  Camp Pucker?  What in the heck had I purchased that would appear on a receipt as Camp Pucker?  I could feel my thoughts careening around my brain in search of the answer like the steel ball in a pinball machine.  Then, the ball shot off laterally and all I could think of was the unfortunate child whose parents had just signed him up for Camp Pucker.  Waay worse than Outward Bound!  I started giggling, then laughing, then guffawing, then crying and couldn't quit.  I'd just get my tears wiped and my nose blown and I'd think about it again and off I'd go.

I finally figured out it was a camp shirt made of today's version of seersucker I bought right before I went to visit my brother in Tacoma last July.

Life can be a lot of fun by yourself in a 200+-square-foot cabin in the Rocky Mountains.

What made you laugh today?  Teddee