It's OK, I Have Another One

I had never heard the expression, " pied" in your "bouche", until I took a creative writing class in college. It means, to "stick your foot in your mouth." When I did hear it, I thought of a wonderfully funny example to write about for the assignment. Nancy has been one of my best friends since high school.

Nancy, is the youngest of eight children. Being the youngest, Nancy received much teasing and jousting. She grew to have a unique sense of humor through all of the jokes and teasing though.

Nancy could make a joke out of anything. One time we were on a double date and her date made the comment, "I love your perfume, what is it?" Nancy then replied in all seriousness, "Why thank you, it is Ben Gay."

She was always telling cute jokes and stories. When someone would make a "wise" crack, she would say to me, "hit 'em, your closer." She would fire out wonderful "come backs" to anything one could throw in her direction.

Having a contagious laugh and a supply of jokes, Nancy could make anyone laugh. She had a cute saying for anything that happened. When someone would bump an elbow or stub a toe, she would say, "It's ok, you have another one." Well, being together all the time, this became a saying which I used also.

One sunny spring day, we were eating at the local McDonalds, where we always ate. We had just finished our meals and were cleaning up the table. Nancy dumped her meal into the swinging lid garbage can, I followed. 

Being right handed, I used my right hand to dump the tray into the garbage can and in the process, I caught my right pinky in between the garbage can lid and the swinging door. I pulled it free and complained about how it hurt. Then Nancy made the smart comment, "It's ok, you have another one."

Nancy and I then looked at one another and burst into a fit of laughter. We laughed so hard we had not only tears, but streams of tears flowing down our faces. We were so caught up that we were sitting on the cold tiles of the McDonalds' floor.

People around us watched uncomfortably as we "died with laughter" there on the floor. In a few minutes we had toned ourselves down to quiet chuckles, wiped the tears from our faces, and peeled ourselves off the tiles. 

As we were leaving, a little embarrassed, Nancy rested her arm on my shoulder. It is one of the best memories of our friendship. As I pushed open the door to leave with my left hand, one could see, I have no left pinky.

I posted a few years ago how I lost my left finger. Here is a link to that post.  I have thought of that situation over the years as someone hurts themselves on their arms and legs and I still sometimes finding myself saying, "It's ok, you have another one!"