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Laugh Lines

Not So Smooth Moves

By Martha Bolton and Phil Callaway

It’s a funny thing being a writer. During those terrifying moments in life when you know you are going to die, whether at the hands of a stubborn parachute, a leaky canoe or your mother-in-law’s wild driving, all you can think of is: I sure hope I live so I can write about this! But horrifying occasions also exist where you have done something so incredibly dumb that you know you will never have the courage to confess it to your faithful and long-suffering readers.

Knowing, however, that our readers are above average and can keep a secret, we have decided to confess several of the dumbest things we have managed to accomplish over the years.

First off, we want you to know that we are not alone. Others have accomplished similar dim-witted deeds. We’d feel better if we exposed them first.

A Wisconsin man makes us feel much better. Before leaving on vacation, he decided he should hide his handguns and ammunition, just in case thieves broke in and stole them. But where do you hide such things? In the oven, of course. Who would ever look in an oven for artillery? Unfortunately he forgot to tell his wife where he’d placed them, and when they got home from vacation, well, you can guess the rest. Turning on the over to cook dinner, she got the surprise of her life. USA Today reported that when the bullets began exploding, the couple took cover behind their refrigerator. Finally the intrepid husband was able to use an extinguisher to put out the fire (and firearms). Luckily no one got hurt, but I guess that’s on way to put a hole in your Bundt cake!

In Great Britain, a truck driver by the name of Klaus Buergermeister ran into a Smart car without knowing he had. Klaus proceeded to drive for two miles with the tiny vehicle wedged to the front of his semi, before being flagged down by police. Andreas Bolga, the terrified driver of the so-called Smart car, was finally able to escape before anything worse happened.

At the pinnacle of my (Phil’s) hockey career, as all the teenage girls in our little town watched, I scored the overtime goal of the championship game! Quite a feat. Except that I scored it into my own net. I was publicly humiliated, to say the least. In fact, I don’t remember much about the next eight or ten years of my life. But I do remember what happened when I got home after the game. My father sat with me, and he grinned. Then he snickered. Then he laughed with me. And best of all he told me he loved me in spite of my very public mistake.

Once while in one of those super shoe stores, I (Martha) decided to try on a pair of boots. I looked around for a place to sit down, but all the stools were taken. Behind me, however, was a row of large boxes that obviously dozens of shoes were shipped in. I figured I would just turn around and take a seat on one of those.

My plan would have worked had the boxes had anything in them, but because they were empty, when I sat down, I sank all the way to the floor. My legs were now sticking up out of the box like a couple of chopsticks in a Chinese takeout meal. It was a tight fit and I couldn’t budge. So I had to rock the box side to side to get it to fall over so I could crawl out! Since this store was at the mall, there’s no telling how many people were watching me from the window.

The embarrassing moments of life are good reminders that it’s good to be humbled. Humility. It’s the one thing few of us ask God for, but it’s so necessary in life. Humility keeps us from judging others too harshly. It also reminds us that we have a Father who smiles and sometimes even laughs with us in the midst of our dumbest mistakes. Why? Because He has an eternal perspective and because He knows we’re not perfect. And if we’re wise, we’ll learn from those mistakes.

Excerpted from It’s Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens by permission of Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2007. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other Web locations for retrieval, published in other media, or mirrored at other sites without writer permission from Baker Publishing Group.