My
sister Sherry is a speech language pathologist.
So is my daughter, Annie. Sherry
worked with young children in elementary schools for more than three decades.
One
day she was testing a kid for word recognition.
She said a word, had the child repeat it to her, and then the kid was to
put the word in a sentence.
Word
#1. Irrigate.
The
kid rolls those “R’s out with a bit of a struggle, then follows with this
sentence:
“My big sister irrigates me!”
Sherry
smiles, hands him his reward for pronouncing the word, then suggests that he
may have meant that his sister “irritates” him.
Same
kid, word #2. Humid.
The
kid hums the “m” and clicks his tongue up behind his teeth to form the “d”.
“Humid. My dad has a really good sense of
humid.”
Sherry:
(Chuckling) Sorry buddy, I think you meant to say “humor.”
A
good clean chuckle, to a Christian soul, is like rain on the desert. We really
overlook its power. I HOPE I don’t
forget that!
Last
night my sister Libby told us about the time she had to correct one of the ticket
agents for Trans World Airlines. Lib was
regional sales manager for TWA, and she was at the desk overseeing a large
group from a travel agency. She could
hear a young agent talking to a passenger who was trying to check a cardboard
box instead of a suitcase. “Sir, you’re
going to have to sign a waiver for this package. TWA cannot be reliable for this.” The
passenger objected, and the agent just kept repeating “TWA is just not
reliable, you’ll need to sign a waiver.” Finally Libby stepped over to the gal
and pulled her aside, “Um, I think you must mean to say that TWA cannot be
liable or responsible; but we really don’t want you to keep repeating that TWA
is not reliable.”
For
years now we have been commenting amongst each other that some people just
don’t have a good sense of humid. And
when I’m bothered by a situation, I complain that its irrigating me. I’m terrible at telling jokes (ask my
family), but I sure like a good chuckle.
And thanks to the people around me, where’s plenty to laugh about. The
humid lives on!
