Sometimes I Just Can't Stop Laughing

Uncontrollable laughter. Sometimes it happens randomly and I laugh at something that probably isn't that funny for approximately 20 minutes. It almost always happens when I'm with my siblings, to the point where other people can't understand us. And sometimes it happens when I'm overtired and delirious. 

My close friends in high school, or the ones that had any 5th period class with me (for some reason I was always delirious in 5th period) have a lot of experience with my uncontrollable laughter. My best friend in 8th grade came to the beach with me and experienced one of my most outrageous giggle fits and probably has a better memory about why I was laughing than I do. I have no idea why, but at the time I couldn't stop laughing.

 

Anyways, I'm sure other people occasionally...maybe not as often as me...laugh uncontrollably randomly. But it gets more awkward when I have an urge to laugh uncontrollably while I'm slugging, in a car full of quiet strangers (most of the time). It's only happened a couple of times, I swear.

1. I was reading Tina Fey's autobiography and I forgot where I was. I tried to look out the window away from the book, like that was going to stop me from remembering what I'd just read.

2. I couldn't help but fell asleep in the backseat one day, when I didn't have a book to read and I was really tired (I swear it only happened a few times), and it happened to be on a day when we packed 5 people into a sedan because the line was long and the driver was generous. I woke up in a jerk, after having a dream that I was falling. And not one person looked over at me, but when I realized where I was and what had just happened I started cracking up, and then trying to stifle my laugh.  (Puglisi siblings know the noise I make when I'm trying to stifle my laughs. It was rough.) I think it was almost funnier that no one even flinched.

As a driver the urge usually comes when I look in the backseat and see two grown men passed out with their heads leaning back and mouths open, or snoring, and I'll just about lose it. (People will snore--rarely, but they will-- and that's when everyone else in the car usually looks around and kind of chuckles.) I'm like their mommy dropping them off at the kiss-and-ride at school. It cracks me up. I drive "grown-ups" to work. I don't know why that's funnier than driving slugs that are my age. I guess because some of them are literally my friends' parents? And probably because about half of the people I drive are serious men who go to the Pentagon and do important things, I'm assuming. I don't know how else to explain it, it makes me laugh.

What sparked this whole post idea in my mind was the man that got into my car this morning. He was one of the Army dudes going to the Pentagon, and he got in my car and had a bag or briefcase of some sort he wanted to put down. My sweater that I had worn the day before was in the backseat in the middle, and he looked at it and said, "Do you mind if I move your child's sweater?" without a hesitation. I held back the laugh, and told him no problem. I didn't even bother to correct him because, honestly, I'm 5 feet tall it probably did look like a child's sweater. But it cracked me up. I should have rolled with it and been like, "Oh I forgot that she left that in here." My child's sweater. If I were my Grandma, it would have actually been from the kid's department because she could fit into their clothes and would shop there. It was a sweater from New York and Company, why did he assume it was a child's. It just seemed so funny.

What I'd imagine a child's sweater would look like. 

Ok-not really but it was the best I could find.

Maybe you had to be there. Had to share it anyways. My child's sweater. Too good.

Sneaky Slug and the Mystery Lot

I was picking up slugs at the Pentagon this afternoon, and I already had one lady in my back seat who was going to RV so I told the next man that approached my window where we were headed. He then asked, "Old Keene Mill?" which I took as needing clarification as to where the slug lot I mentioned was--perhaps he didn't know the name of the lot he went to? So I said yep, and he got in the car. Two minutes later as we were getting on the HOV lane he said, "Actually, I get out a little bit earlier on Old Keene Mill road at Daventry."

Little background here. Daventry is a completely separate slug lot, much farther down Old Keene Mill closer to 395 than Rolling Valley. Oh, and basically nobody goes there. Especially in the afternoon from the Pentagon. I rarely see riders asking for a ride to Daventry in the afternoon at the Pentagon, but when I do see them they're always desperate and often end up getting dropped off in some random location.

Map of the Parkway with a star where the Sydenstricker Lot is 

located.

I looked at him and said, "Umm..I take the Parkway exit, I don't go down Old Keene Mill." He then proceeded to say, "Well that's why I said OKM for clarification." We resolved the situation by him offering to have me let him out on the side of the Parkway. "We both win!" He says. Oh yes, we both win. I now have to pull over, on the shoulder of the Parkway to let you out because you sneaked your way into my car without telling me where you were really going. Win, win, pal. 

You're probably thinking, why didn't I just go down Old Keene Mill, instead? 1. OKM traffic is seriously insane. So many traffic lights and I don't think any of them are synced. One time I sat at the first traffic light after exiting 395 for 10 minutes. In that time, I can be all the way down the Parkway and at the slug lot. So yeah, I just stick with the Parkway.

By taking the Parkway I can also drop slugs off at either the Rolling Valley or Sydenstricker lot, because Sydenstricker is right off the Parkway, and it's just faster to get to Rolling Valley that way. So when people walk up to my car at the Pentagon, I tell them I can go to either, or if there's a line of people when I show up I'll ask where the first two people in line are going because it's really kind of sporadic as to which lot has more drivers on a given day. (RV is actually a little bit out of the way because of a light I have to sit at exiting the lot, and it's a couple streets past my house, but I feel their pain having been an RV slug before...)

Back to the real story. 2. Even if I had conceded and gone down OKM so as to drop him off on my way, it's still hard to pull over where Daventry is and get back into traffic because you kind of just pull over into a compact bus lane. So it's somewhat rude to jump into someone's car without letting them know you aren't actually going to the slug lot that they mentioned. Work that stuff out before you get in the car. Sneaky, sneaky Daventry-man. And 3. I had a softball game to get to so I couldn't really spare the time to go out of my normal way, since I was already a little behind schedule, too.

As soon as he got out of the car, the lady in the back seat (who happened to ride with me in the morning, as well--I always find it humorous when that happens) and I vented about how that had been not only rude by dangerous to ask me to do that. Then she said, "Well, remember him for next time so you don't pick him up." Done and Done. Good bye, Mr. Sneaky Daventry Slug.