beep beep beep

I am so grateful for laughter. My journey lately consists of moments of joy, waves of sadness, and intense frustration. After the worst day of classes yet on Wednesday, I skipped class on Thursday, slept in, and ran some errands. I went to buy a printer at CompUSA. It was a riot. I asked for help picking out a printer that is compatible with Mac. (In matters of electronics, I don't pretend to not need help.) So, some dude named 'Art' is being paged and everyone keeps asking me if I'm the woman who is looking for Art. Apparently, yes, I'm looking for Art. Finally, this little grandmother-like woman named Gloria meanders up and says that she can help me. So, I tell her that I want a laser printer and off we go to the scanner aisle. At this point, I'm thinking maybe I don't need help. Until, she scratches her head and smiles and says, 'Now wait a second, honey, you said printer didn't you?' So, off we go to the printer aisle at last. Finally, we find an affordable printer that will sync up to a mac and I'm ready to get out of that store. And Gloria just walks away. I assume that she's going to get the printer (please Lord), so I wait. For about 10 minutes. And while I'm waiting a man walks out with a cart of purchases and the alarm goes off like crazy and all the employees just stand there and look at him and then I hear Gloria yelling 'Ms. Downs, I've got your printer!' as she wanders up and down the aisles looking for me. And right then, I just burst into glorious laughter. I mean, doubled over, joyful laughter at how fun and crazy our world is. And since that moment, I've been able to laugh more. My eyes have been opened once again to the beauty around me in spite of heartbreak and sadness and death and disease. Perhaps my joy is going deeper because the sadness has carved out more room.