No One has Crabs
“Go ahead and laugh. Do it. I dare you.”
I took my kids to the zoo last week with some friends, where maybe one of the funniest conversational oopses I’ve ever been witness to happened and brought me great mirth and joy. It was refreshing to be on the laughing end of one of those for once. The situation was as follows:
Friend 1 pouring tea concentrate packet into hot water.
Erika: Still doing the (name of eating plan here, anonymized to protect the dignity of my friend) thing? How’s it going?
Friend 1: Oh, it’s going great! I’m sleeping better, I’m losing pounds, losing inches, the fog is gone, the crabs are gone…
Friend 1 keeps preparing tea. Erika, brow furrowed in confusion, dissects Friend 1′s last statement, trying to determine whether she perhaps misheard what her friend said. Confused, because Erika didn’t know she and Friend 1 were on STD-discussion terms, Erika looks over at Friend 2, who somehow manages to keep a straight face for two whole more seconds before bursting into laughter.
Friend 1: Oh! Oh, no. Crabbiness. The crabbiness is gone!
Erika: Embarrassed, relieved laughter for five minutes, after which she swipes away the tears in her eyes and proceeds to dissolve into fits of giggles throughout the rest of the day.
In the car on the way home, I was dictating a text message to Friend 3 using SIRI, which went something like this:
Erika: SIRI, please send a text to Friend 3.
SIRI: Ok, what would you like it to say?
Erika: “When you get home, ask Friend 2 why Friend 1 has crabs.”
I’d no sooner hit send when my son piped up from the backseat.
Four-year old son: Mommy, why does Friend 3 have crabs?
And that, my friends, is the reason I had to explain to my son why no one has crabs. When asked why it was a joke, I replied that sometimes, crabs are just funny.
It’s possible my son will grow up thinking I have some kind of weird attachment to crustaceans, but I won’t care, because I’ll always have the memory of the day my son asked me why Friend 3 has crabs.
LAUGHTER FOREVER.
