Laughing Alone

In the back corner of the Teen Challenge thrift store, I found this treasure: Latchhook Jesus. He’s now hanging over my stove, presiding over my timer, leggy Easter bird, a couple of Marys, and two smoking cupcakes (not pictured).

Is it blasphemous? Blasphemy, like humor, is a thin dotted line separating the LOL lane from the Please Please Stop Talking lane on the conversation highway.

Is it blasphemous? Well, I’m a Jesus fan, and the rug’s design reminds me of my illustrated children’s Bibles and pictures on the Sunday School room walls. 

The rug picks up the colors in my furniture assortment. The plushyness of it even rhymes with Dickens’ cat tower that’s in my line of sight. I think what swayed me, if there was any doubt, is the Savior’s black bean eye.

My mother once made a semi-circle latchhook rug that must have been three feet in diameter and used to sleep on the floor by my bed. From a creamy white background bloomed three flowers, purple and burgundy, larger than cabbages.

I’ve never found my craft, but I had a latchhook phase, laboring on an owl pillowtop while watching TV. This was less demanding than cross-stitch, which I also tried for a season, even procuring a sewing basket and a clear plastic embroidery thread organizer with matchbook-sized flat cardboard spools around which you’d wind your skeins.

But back to blasphemy/humor: I’ll be the first to admit that plenty of my attempted jokes fall flat (just ask my students). My definition of fun(ny) might be way off. 

For example, you and your date go out to hear some swing music. You've been in the club for all of 30 seconds, and a guy you don’t know asks you to dance. You say that you don’t know how to swing dance. You just have to fake it, he says. He feels very strongly that you should try dancing. So you do. You hang your bulky purse on the shoulder of your date and proceed to the dance floor with a guy, in sandals, who you just met.

Funny? Was it a glimpse of the new and impulsive Nicole to be laughed off with an I-can’t-believe-you-did-that-you-crazy-girl smile?

Not this time.