Reminiscing about laughable situations

• Reprints

For those of us who keep track of these things, this is national “Someday We’ll Laugh About This” month. Many stories come to mind but one is a memory I pull out often.

In my senior year at college, I held the esteemed position of resident advisor. I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek because, as any college student knows, “esteemed” spoken in the same breath as “RA” is an extreme stretch of the ego.

Basically, RAs were strategically located on each floor or wing of the dorms to assure that students A) weren’t doing anything illegal, B) didn’t burn down the building and C) would not injure themselves under my watch. It was a thankless job but it meant free room and board and a monthly paycheck. Well, hey, someone had to do it.

My 30 or so girls were bright, personable and devious. Seriously, I could write a book on all the shenanigans they tried to pull. But one rises out in infamy.

Walking home late one night with my friend Katie, a fellow RA, we noticed a fire hose hanging from one of the dorm windows.

“Oh my gosh,” Kate said. “Did we have a fire?”

Starting to panic, I counted the floors. My heart dropped. Yes indeed, it was three, my floor.

Running up the stairs, I stepped into at least two inches of soggy, smelly, wet carpet.

The good news? There was no fire. The bad? My darlings were having a water fight before bed when one decided to win it decisively by using the fire hose, thinking she could control the flow. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! For the next three weeks, it was like living in a rice paddy.

“One day, we’ll laugh about this,” Katie offered that night. And we do, just about every time we get to reminiscing over a glass of scotch.

Noreen Scott, Crown Point: Our oldest son, Richie, was really hyper as a kid. He had a great heart, but not a lot of common sense. When he was about 8, we had company coming and I kept nagging my husband to move the car to clear the driveway. Big Rich was watching a ball game and obviously didn’t feel the same urgency I did. Running circles in the room, Richie kept asking his father if he could move the car. Distracted my husband said, “Yeah, right.”

Richie took that as a “go ahead” and promptly plowed our new van into the neighbor’s brick mailbox. Big Rich kept telling me how it would someday become a favorite memory but trust me, it took many, many years to find it the least bit funny.

Brooke Cavanaugh, Schererville: In the middle of a final interview for a job I really wanted, I looked down and to my horror, realized I had on, not only two different shoes, but in two very different colors: red and dark blue. I slipped them on in the dark closet without even looking. Twenty-two years later, my boss still likes to remind me of that day.