Friday, November 6, 2009

"Did you ever...?" (Good Mood Guy)

Did you ever…?
by Melech



Did you ever wonder how some people are always able to stay in a good mood no matter what happens to them? That’s my neighbour Buster. He and my neighbour Bing are best friends, which just goes to prove the old saying that “opposites attract”.
Nothing rattles Buster. He remains calm and cool through any major or minor situation.
Bing, on the other hand, becomes unglued if there is a wind shift that wasn’t predicted by the weather report.
A few weeks ago, Bing and I were helping Buster store some lumber in his garage that he was going to use to build a recreation room in his basement. I accidentally dropped a 2 x 4 and it klunked Buster squarely on the head. He claimed to be amused by having been knocked senseless. Bing, on the other hand, didn’t talk to me for weeks after the time I backed into him with the riding lawn mower. I still don’t believe they had to cut the shoe off of his foot.

Then there was the time when Buster was putting up the Japanese lanterns on his patio for the big party he and his wife were giving. Without realising it, I leaned on the power switch. Every hair on Buster’s head stood straight up and didn’t come back down for two days. Even when his eyebrows and eyelashes fell out and his left eye was rolling, whilst the right eye remained fixed and dilated, he remained in a good mood and said that accidents happen. I still felt bad because Buster was the only one who couldn’t attend his own party. How different from Bing who fell apart when I accidentally buried him under twelve feet of snow with my snow thrower. He eventually dug himself out and only suffered a mild case of frostbite, but he still blames me for the partial memory loss and the fact that his teeth and his eyebrows are still numb.

How can I ever forget the time when a few of us went bowling and I dropped the bowling ball on Buster’s foot? Did he get angry? Not on your life! He just smiled and said that the ball probably wasn’t a good fit for me. He didn’t even mind that he couldn’t bowl the rest of the game and that he had to be carried to the car. Bing could take lessons from Buster. Somehow or other, the bowling ball got away from me on the backswing and hit Bing in the stomach. When he regained consciousness, he said he didn’t want to bowl anymore and that he wanted to go home. Bing still claims that his stomach was blue, purple and yellow for two weeks. I’m not sure I believe that.

I haven’t seen Buster for a while. As a matter of fact, the last time I saw him was when I was helping him build the recreation room in his basement. He was humming and smiling a lot, and his left eye was still rolling. Today, I noticed a “For Sale” sign in front of his house, and no one was at home. My sister told me that Buster’s wife was visiting him at the convalescent home. They say he broke two teeth trying to chew his way out of the restraints, but he is still humming and smiling and now, both eyes are rolling; in opposite directions. Naturally, I wanted to visit him, but when I asked my sister which convalescent home he was in, she pretended she didn’t hear me, and she hung up on me.


“Did you ever…?” is a weekly newspaper column by Melech.
©copyright 2009 by Melech. All rights reserved
The next column will be posted on November 13, 2009

File #RBCOL38

2 comments:

  1. With neighbors like his, Buster has little choice but to keep smiling....

    ReplyDelete
  2. LOL Welcome to the neighbour hood !

    A smile costs nothing, except your front set of teeth !

    ReplyDelete