Making good use of all those little stories

I know someone who once happily confessed to being a closet Ding-Dong eater. I can’t remember her reasoning just now for wanting to hide that particular vice. Perhaps it was because eating Ding-Dongs offered a poor example for her children – or maybe she just didn’t want to share, though I really doubt that was it. But what I do remember is the sheer hilarity of the conversation. And I don’t know where she eats her Ding-Dongs today but I do know that every time I see a display in a store with that particular ‘toothsome delight’ I have to smile.

My husband – with whom I am hopelessly and madly in love – likes to read in the bathroom. Late one evening, long after it was time to retire for the night, he went into the bathroom just as I was climbing in bed. And he was in there a long time. When I finally called to him that it was getting late, the toilet flushed immediately and he yelled “I am so reading.” (I’m sure the thought crossed his mind briefly that he should say “I am not reading” but I guess he knew such a claim wasn’t going to fly.) His timing, as always, was perfect; his delivery, appropriately pouty and defiant. The surprise assertion, as opposed to the expected denial, was the perfect retort. We’re still laughing about it.

During a visit with my parents some years ago, we were trying to plan a day of sightseeing etc. and, while I don’t remember the details any longer, I do know that, somehow and improbably, cinnamon buns were figuring prominently. My mother, who has never met a cinnamon/icing combination she didn’t like, brightened right up and said “Well, this plan is shaping up nicely!”

How many funny, endearing stories do we collect in a lifetime through the people around us? Since I really like the ‘uncomplicated’ in people – relishing small pleasures, engaging in easy and frivolous conversation, sharing embarrassments and laughing about them, finding simple joy in each other’s company – I know I have thousands of those stories in my own memory.

I’m determined to do a better job of ‘cataloguing’ them so that I can quickly recall and substitute one of them every time I start to dwell on more negative ‘stuff.’ I’m tired of negative stuff. Let’s start a new trend.