Happy Birthday

To my mother, who was probably the first person who ever made me think I could be funny:

One memory I've always kept, even if it was only a small moment, was one afternoon after Sunday dinner. I might've been oh, 10 or 11. I was doing the dishes by myself, the kitchen empty except for my mother sitting at the kitchen table, just relaxing looking out the window that was over the sink in front of me. I'm scrubbing dishes, neither of us is saying anything. I quietly start humming something, just kinda bopping my head ba-dum-bum-bum-bum-ba-dum-bum-bum-bum, just kinda bebopping for no reason. This shortly changed from humming to to pshaw-ing out loud the same rhythm with my lips, I had forgotten my mother was sitting there and was getting noisier. Then from outta the sinkwater I happened to pick up some brush, shaped like a paintbrush and for putting a glaze on a barbecue, I guess. I'm bebopping out loud, bopping my head, rinsing the brush off and without breaking rhythm all of a sudden thrust the brush to the window and give it a few slaps, as if I was painting on a large canvas, my slaps with the brush accompanied by even louder scatting A BOW-BOW-BOW! All of a sudden I hear my mother behind me cracking up, I turn around and she's laughing her head off. "Oh god, Greg," she laughed, "you're too funny." Looking back I don't know if it really was that funny, but it's a tiny moment in just any ordinary day that I'll always remember.