The Sound of One Hand Slapping

Some people have laughs that I truly love. My friend Nature Boy has a great, infectious laugh as I've mentioned before, and my dad too. When those guys are laughing, you can't help but join in. Also there are certain people who don’t laugh quite so easily, so when they finally do, it's a wonderful sound. This is true of my mom, my husband and my friend Dan.

In theory I think that the sound of laughter is a beautiful thing and just as I like to believe that there are no ugly babies or kittens, until recently I have also liked to believe that are no ugly laughs.

I was wrong. There are ugly laughs.

There is a person who works in my office who has the ugliest laugh I have ever heard. I hear it all day long echoing amongst the rose and mint colored cloth cubicles, but I have never quite figured out exactly who it is. She has a laugh that grates on my last nerve and causes me stumble around my cube when I hear it, frantically reaching for my headphones and the volume control on my iPod. I need to make the horrible noise go away as quickly as possible.

Her laugh makes the laughs of Fran Drescher and Janice from Friends sound like angel choirs singing on gossamer clouds.

It's a laugh that sounds like a robotic goat is being sodomized. Only more fake.

It is a laugh that is both human and machine-like. This laugh has no joy, no inflection, and no volume control. It is a laugh that occurs often enough during my workday that I think this person must not have enough work to do. I mean, what kind of wacko finds every single thing funny enough to bleat out a disturbing cackle like that all day long? This person is either constantly laughing at really stupid shit or constantly fucking a robotic goat anus.

I just don't know. It's hard to tell.

To be fair I think her laugh must be a bad habit, or a nervous tic. At least this is what I tell myself in order to be able drum up enough sympathy to make it through the work day without shoving felt tipped markers in my ears to drown out the sound.

I think I know who this person is, but I have no proof as I have never actually seen her honking out this noise. If it's who I think it is, it's someone who you would never guess. She's a really beautiful woman with perfectly coiffed hair, impeccable make-up and a lean, yoga-toned body. At least she has that going for her because beautiful as she is, the sound of her laugh is so horrific that I think her husband must either be deaf or too depressed to ever crack a joke in her presence.

Anyhoo... it has been a long day and sometimes when I hear that lady laughing, as much as I like my job, I wish I worked from home again, far from the teeming masses.

Can't Get There from Here

Our local whoever is in charge of fixing the roads seems to have had some kind of planning, scheduling or logistical foul up because every goddamn road we normally use to get anywhere has been closed and there are detours.

Lots and lots of detours.

It's maddening.

If you would like to travel on Highway A under normal circumstances you would turn right at the end our our street drive about half a mile and voila! Highway A.

If you would like to travel on Route B simply make a left turn at the end our our street drive about 3 miles and.... Ahhhh... Route B.

One of the reasons we chose this particular neighborhood was the lovely combination of quiet sleepiness and close proximity to multiple highways. But for the last month there is so much road construction around our neighborhood that I cannot go more than 4 blocks in either direction at the end our our street without encountering a detour of some kind. We have been completely boxed in.

I was nearly destroyed earlier this week when after establishing a new pattern, however convoluted of using the detours to find my way to and from work every day I discovered that one of the detours I have been using now has it's own detour. Did I mention something earlier about madness?

In spite of all the detours, construction and extra traffic my commute to work in the morning is only taking about 5 extra minutes, but for reasons that are very difficult to explain to people who don't live in Michigan or states that discourage left turns, the time it takes me to drive home in the evening has doubled.

I have lost that certain 5pm spring in my step and eagerness to go home. Why bother, I think, I'm just going to sit seething in traffic anyway.

Actually, lately I've noticed I'm seething less. Not that the other driver's aren't every bit as irritating to me as they usually are, but the road rage has given way to a sort of secret encouragement and I have turned into a detour traffic coach, unbeknownst to my fellow de-tourists and I find myself saying things like:

That's it Green Ford Focus, focus!

OK beat-up Corolla, I'm counting on you. Turn! Turn! Turn! Aw damn! Why did you stop in the middle of your turn? Next time. You'll get it next time.

C'mon Buick! Let's go. Show me that Charlie Hustle!

Anyhoo... I'm glad to be home.