His name was Cactus Jack

You may not know this about me, but I have an unfortunate trait which I sometimes refer to as "occasional Tourette's syndrome" where I get the uncontrollable giggles at the most inappropriate times.  It has been my nemesis throughout the years, striking at the most inopportune times; the temple, when there is complete silence somewhere, when someone falls, when someone performs and is awful, etc.  I can always feel it bubbling up inside me before I vomit laughter.  It usually starts with an awkward moment wherein my thought process is, "It would be really terrible if I started laughing right now."  And things just erupt form there.  In these moments, I secretly hate myself because if my life depended on it, I could not stop laughing even though I am fully aware of how cruel and unseemly my laughter is.  Thankfully, as I have gotten older, it has happened less and less, but alas, it reared it's ugly head again last weekend.

We were invited to a Christmas performance of an artist named Cactus Jack at our wonderful neighborhood friend's house.  The atmosphere was warm and inviting, but my impression of him was immediately tainted when I found out right before his performance that the real purpose of his being there was to seek funding support for his upcoming play.  Suddenly, I felt trapped, like being unwittingly present at a tupperware party, not knowing where the quick exit was and wondering which thing that I didn't want I was going to have to buy.  Well my friends, that tainting was the tip of the iceberg, for when I met him things only got worse.  Cactus Jack walked in wearing his midlife crisis like a thick quilt spread all over him--long, blonde hair which he could not stop running his fingers through, a huge belt buckle which held up his bedazzled teenage jeans, overdone Australian accent even though he was born and raised in Arkansas, and some inappropriate flirting with his manager who ironically was there with her ailing husband.  That, along with some intense bragging and reference to people mistaking him for Brad Pitt and I was totally turned off and there was no coming back from that.  And that was before the first song started.  I spend a lot of my life listening to people's problems, I am naturally drawn towards helping people, but when Cactus Jack chose to open up to us about his divorce over 10 years ago, blaming it on his LDS upbringing and proceeded to weep about it throughout the program, all I can say is that it was AWWWKWARD!!  My heart went out to him, but pull yourself together man!  If you're going to be performing a play about a divorce that happens on Christmas, you need to have healed yourself a little more before performing!  Unfortunately, the situation was made worse by the fact that the turnout was small so all ten of us had a front row seat.  So there I was front and center as Cactus started pouring out his soul to us and the other ladies present began passing around a box of kleenex and that was when the old, seemingly forgotten trigger thought emerged in my mind:  "It would be really bad if I started laughing right now…"  And then I could feel the laughter welling up inside, slowly inching it's way to the surface until I LOST IT.  I started giggling uncontrollably and no matter how much I forced myself to think about death, disease, the enormous mole on his forehead, and other horrifying events, I could not stop.  Robert, seeing me lose control, desperately scream-whispers, "Go to the bathroom!  Leave!"  He was starting to laugh too, and so he commanded "And don't look at me!"  I could feel the dirty stares upon me, and worse, I knew I deserved them.  Ohhh the agony I am to myself sometimes!  WHY OH WHY did my occasional Tourette's have to strike right then?!

Thankfully, there was a short break in the program and I was able to distract myself long enough to pull it together.  By the end, I was even able to compliment him on his performance and quickly sneak out, thankfully without leaving any monetary support.  I wish him well, and I apologize that his midlife crisis had the terrible coincidence of meeting up with my occasional Tourette's syndrome.