5 minute penalty
By Jeremy Gulley
My family is always busy. My wife teaches English at the college level, runs marathons, and is involved in many other activities. My boys are both on the Miami County Vipers swim team, act in the Osawatomie Time Machine, and always find ways to stay busy. For my part, I teach at Fort Scott, attend classes at UMKC, write for this paper, and on and on and on.
My family doesn’t only provide activities and action; however, it also provides a seemingly endless source of inspiration. For an aspiring writer, inspiration is a key. What good is writing if the writer doesn’t have anything to say? Thankfully, for now I have a plethora of material.
For instance, the doctors visit.
On Friday, my older son complained about a sore ear. Due to his amazingly high pain tolerance, when he complains, we take action. I made an appointment for the doctor, and he, his brother and I were on our way.
That could be the end of the story, or at least the beginning of the main theme – sick kid, doctor, ear infection, medicine, all better.
But not with my family.
On the way to the doctors, my boys and I told jokes and made fun of each other. We invented a bank robbing league, where teams could compete and show off their bank robbing skills. Teams would have their own jerseys with the robber’s name on the back. There would be schedules, records of wins and losses, and even playoffs to decide a champion. We also decided that the robbers, as a way to give back, would deposit the money they stole back into the bank it was taken from. This way, the money would be safe from other undesirable characters.
Then one of us said something that the other two did not laugh at. The statement was not funny, and it threw off our groove.
So, we decided then and there that the best way to handle the situation was to assess a penalty.
For this unfunny offense, we gave the speaker a five minute penalty of silence. Then we decided we liked that idea enough to make it permanent. From now on, when someone says something that is supposed to be funny but isn’t, he will be given a 5 minute penalty.
The point of this penalty? Well, it makes me think about what I say before I say it, that’s for sure.
But, and here is the important point I think, it helped turn a trip to the doctors office that could have been just another day, or even a stressful one, into an inside joke that helped bring us together in a deeper way. This penalty will, hopefully, be assessed for years to come. Whether or not it is enforced is another story, but the fact that we’ll assess it when someone tells a dud joke will remind us of the day we rode together to the doctors.
When things become busy in my house, we now have another way to remind ourselves that we are a family.
Short URL: http://osawatominews.com/?p=486
Posted by admin
on Oct 27 2010. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion.
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