My Personal Perversity: Please Don't Fall Down... Go BOOM... Around Me!

Steady.... lady! Easy, Gaga!



I try, I mean, I seriously TRY to be a good person. But sometimes, I just plain suck at it. There are certain quirks in me that I wish didn’t exist. For example, perversity. Sure, we all possess a bit of it. It’s obviously not something to be proud of, and certainly not our best trait. But it exists, and it can, will and does manifest in different ways.

Me? I’ve a few of them. But something I tend to do in a disturbing way is to laugh at things I’ve no business laughing at. And I kinda feel guilty when I laugh at stuff I'm NOT supposed to be chortling at.

Like what? Well like: grown-ass people falling down and busting their azzes can make me erupt and cry with mad wild laughter.


I know! I know! I ain’t right, yo. I ain’t right! I am NOT right!!!



Here’s a prime example. Picture it: a while back, I'm walking down the city street with a close friend. It’s all good and animated, as we’re talking and riffing back and forth, and our conversation's fairly serious.

But suddenly, this very sharply-dressed sista came darting outta this fancy clothing store right in front of us, all aloof, and very, very quickly, and then BAM! BOOM! She just hit the sidewalk, HARD!


My bwoi said: "Day-YUM! It look like somebody just THREW her azz out the store!"

That statement tickled me to my core. And then, I just lost it, yo. For real. My adult manhood took an extended holiday. Suddenly my inner Junior High School Kid emerged, and that lil fool in me busted out in this mad LOUD GUFFAW! And I do mean... GUFFAWED, like a BIG DAWG!


But ATTEMPTING be a gentleman, and not wanting to HOWL out loud in this woman’s face, I, at least had the good sense and common decency to actually duck into the nearest foyer... just to get my chuckle on.

See? Nice guy, right? Nah! NOT! Why? Because this only made the sound even worse, and now my chuckle had insanely LOUD reverb and it was emptying out into the streets!

So, this poor, exceedingly well-dressed, well-coiffed woman is still laying there on the sidewalk, maybe hurt-up, and all she hears is this LOUD, cackling, disembodied LAUGHTER!

I know! I know! I need my ass kicked! Clearly, I am NOT right!



Meanwhile, my friend, the comic, the fool who'd made the damn joke that prompted my outburst, has now shifted into being the Adult One. This versatile bastard is jumping into Prince Valiant mode, helping her up, dusting her off, acting all concerned and whatnot. But me? I'm a victim of this unhinged fit of laughter. I'm the madman in the next storefront, CRYING, doubled over in hysterics, and I can’t seem to stop! That wild scene, it just kept replaying in my brain, as if on a loop: her regal, finely designer-clad-azz, stepping all lively, and then, BAM! BOOM!


A part of me was laughing at how it DID, indeed, did LOOK like someone had “just THREW her azz out the store!”


I’m so, so ashamed of myself! Seriously. I realize it was WRONG. There must be a 12 Step Program for supposedly GROWN and emotionally mature people like me! I mean, WHY couldn’t I had just MANNED-UP, and helped this woman, like my friend did? I’ve carried elderly women across NY puddles before. True story. I've rescued a stranger who was having a seizure right in front of me! I've a history of stepping up, and doing the RIGHT thing, dammit! Shouldn’t that COUNT for something!?

And why is it that some folks are endowed with the witty gift to say the funniest shit, and keep a straight face, while I look like a total idiot, busy ROTFLMMFAO?


I told myself, the woman had only bruised her well-pampered and manicured ego. My friend would later concur, she wasn’t seriously hurt. Kool. Kool. This made me feel a little better. I told myself this scene would have been far LESS hysterical, if she wasn't so damn ROYAL with her shit. Her attitude was so imperial, so regal, that surely The Last Thing this fancy woman expected to do was to BUST her azz on the city sidewalk!


It’s not like I’m immune. Just this last winter while taking out the trash, that first step onto the very slippery ice-laden stair, and WHAM! Picture it: Me, on my back, fingers scraped on concrete, trash bag ripped, garbage everywhere. But I was able to visualize just how ridiculous I musta looked, and I laid there, pissed, and yet laughing at myself. It’s just mad FUNNY when adults fall down… go BOOM! And personally, I’ve discovered, the better dressed someone is, the MORE HILARIOUS it is when they BUST that azz!

Is it me… and my sophomoric Three Stooges mentality? Am I alone in this fit of mindless perversity?


Sometimes, I think laughing at our fight with gravity comes to us naturally. Or else, why would small children laugh at such things at an early age? As someone else reminded me, you can entertain kids for a long time just pretending to hurt yourself.



But somewhere down the line, we're taught that's not right. Someone could be hurt. So, even when you WANT to, you force yourself NOT to laugh... well, it ain't natural.

“It's all fun and games till someone loses an eye.” Right?

So, I’m not proud. I’m actually a little ashamed myself. But at least I’ve shared, and I’m seeking the cure.

That's an episode of me, being "perverse." How does YOUR adult shame manifest?


After all... we’re only as sick as our perversities, right? Right? RIGHT?




One.