Talking with Friends

Talking with friends who matter leads to the gift of laughter. Fortunate am I to have friends who not only are caring and supportive but who possess a wonderful sense of humor. For example the giggling threesome driving to Tai Chi early on a Saturday morning (including yours truly) rocked the hills and dales of Amesbury with their laughter as they scuttled towards the studio. I cannot actually divulge the subject of that conversation but you can create your own images and go with them. It's a great way to find out if you have a sense of humor.

I can however repeat what another good friend said some hours later about the subject of "bats." Now this is a subject of which I have first hand knowledge having lived with a family of bats for a time in my old manse in Reading, Mass. They lived up in the attic and were prone at times to sail down three flights and swish around the foyer (usualy when I had company around who were more than vocifrous in their response to such actions) until I ran to open the front door to let them free. This was in the daylight, mind you, not a time when ordinary bats are inclined to fly.

But to my friend's story. She was once a nun and at the convent there were many bats hiding here and there. With long handled brooms the nuns would busy themselves sweeping high and low to dislodge whatever errant bat they could find. It gave them good exercise and plenty to talk about. One day, when my friend had finished all her chores - the scrubbing of floors, the washing, the ironing, the cooking, etc, etc., she returned to her cell and happened to look down into her bucket. There was a bat resting on the bottom of the tin bucket. What to do. She took her mop and plunged it into the bucket on the head of the bat and banged and banged until she was sure that that bat was no more. Now her room was next door to the head nun's room who stuck her head out of her door and wanted to know what all the noise was about. One word did it. "Bat," said my friend, and the head nun's door slammed shut. Certain that the bat was no more, my friend lifted her mop from the bucket to reveal the dead little body of the bat. She looked closely. Where was the bat? There was only a pair of black dress shields in the bucket!

There is an ending to that story which entailed speaking once again with the head nun but I can't remember just how she put it. Something like" Well, Sister......, that was a lot of noise for dress shields," and her door closed more softly this time.

I move around in funny circles.