The Laugh of a Lifetime

There is nothing like growing up in a great community and having an abundance of good friends. One of the greatest times in my life was getting together with my friends and hanging out. We'd get together almost every weekend and go somewhere together. Some outings were planned others were let's just go and we'll figure it out along the way. But all would be a day of good times and a lot of fun. My friends were grand.

One of our favorite places to go to was the movies and we always went to the movie theater at the Union Station. The movie theater was mid-centered on the lower level near the food court. My friends and I always got there an hour or two early. We would purchase tickets to the movie we had planned to watch, we would get something to eat and we always sat at the high tables with the tall chairs because they were seated directly in front of the theater but more than that, they were in the best area where we could see most everything happening on the lower level. We had laid claim to these seats. There were three tables with four chairs each just enough for the ten, sometimes twelve of us that showed up faithfully every weekend.

The lower level was like a Mason Dixon Line walkway that people used to get from one side of Union Station to the other. It was similar to the backroads of cities one might use to avoid the crowded streets in traffic or another quick route to one's destination without the hustle or bustle of the big city. Just about everyone with the thought of using it seemed to all be on the same thought wave every weekend because every weekend it seemed there were more and more people who found the walkway.

On one Saturday morning, as usual, my friends and I scheduled with each other to eat out at the Union Station and to catch a movie. We got there two hours early as before, got our tickets, got our food, and went to our favorite spot on the lower level. However, this Saturday, when we got to our tables there was a young man sitting at one of the tables by himself. We all looked at each other and mumbled a word of what to do. All of us had shown up this Saturday. How were we going to get him to move to another table without offending him? After all, we weren't a rumbustious group of young people. We really weren't. We just like to hang out and have lots of fun but he was sitting in our spot.

So, my friends all looked at me like you handle this??? So, here I go over to this complete stranger to chalk up a conversation and try to convince him to go somewhere else. I walk over to him and nervously stand close by. I guess I infringed on his space a little because he looks up at me a stranger to him and begins to talk to me. "Would you like to sit down? He asked" as he starts to scoot over and move his food with him. I am startled a bit. I was not expecting that. As a matter of fact, I was still on how to approach him and say what I needed to say mode to get him to understand my position at hand. We began to chat.

Turns out, he was there waiting to see the same movie we were there to see. His name was Terry just like my brother and he had decided to get there early because the movie was a popular one that many people might be out to see and he wanted to make sure he was able to get a ticket in case it sold out and be close to the theater once the crowds move in. Grand. Terry, this new stranger and I ended up talking for over an hour right up to it was time to go in and see the movie. Oh, my friends were invited to sit at our favorite table and meet Terry too. Another chair was added and he sat with us as he and I continue to talk with each other and with my friends. We found out we had much in common and guess what? Terry is no longer a stranger but has become one of us. When the movie started, he went in with us and sat with us and we all laughed and laughed and laughed. Afterward, when the movie was over we all went out and sat at our same favorite table and an event happened right in front of us that gave us all the laugh of a lifetime.

As we sat and talk and watched people continue to pour in and walk by in front of us, a group of kids with two adult women came walking by. One lady was in the front and the other lady was at the end of the line with a handful of teenagers walking behind her. The lady in front of the teenagers had a short haircut with this long plaited braid in the lower back of her hair. When I say long, it reached way down to her ankles. We all chuckled as not to get her attention that we thought it was odd. So odd in fact, I whispered to my crew, I said, "Yaaa, suppose she drops something and has to bend down to pick it up and one of those teenagers step on that long braid so when she stands up it comes off. I know it's not real", and you would never guess what happened. The lady dropped something that was in her hand! She bent down to pick it up and guess what else? Her braid has folded to the floor when she bent down and she did not notice that one of the teenagers had stepped on it. When she stood back up, IT CAME OFF! We all saw it and saw her reaction as the teenagers started cracking up. Then the entire food court and everybody in the theater line looked around to see what had just happened. All of a sudden the teenagers stopped laughing and it became so quiet on the lower level that you could hear ants walking. Everything it seemed came to a complete halt like everyone froze at the same time.

Then off in the far end of the walkway we heard a slight snicker as we all were trying to hold back our laughter. But that sinister snicker. I looked over at Terry my new stranger friend who had stayed with us, he looked back at me and we could no longer hold it in. It happened like this, the snicker, another snicker then a grunt, and everybody busted out laughing. That lady was clearly upset by this. She turned around to the teenagers who were all shrugging their shoulders like we didn't mean anything by it, but were laughing just the same. Whewwwww..... It was awesome.

It was the best weekend gathering ever. I met a new stranger who became my friend and a friend to my friends, we had a great chat while waiting for the same movie and after the movie the laughing event was the best. It was indeed The Laugh of a Lifetime. The End.