Silence and Laughter

This morning, I had the pleasure of viewing a conversation held entirely in silence. I know, it kind of seems like a contradiction in terms, but I'm telling you, the only words spoken from the time it began to the time it ended, the only words that were spoken were "Bless you" when somebody sneezed, and the sneezer was not one of the two conversationalists. For the purposes of this blog, they will be called E.G. and R.J. They know who they are, but all you guys will be left guessing. Ha-ha.

Today, in 5th period, which is Environmental Science, we had a test. (And believe me, that's a blessing all it's own. Have you ever had those moments where you just want to "kill" people? Like not literally kill but you just want to make them go away? That's basically 5th period for me. I love the class, but I can't stand my classmates. So there's a knife murderer that comes out. She basically looks like the guy from "Assassin's Creed". But, anyway, a test day is the day where no one talks. Which means, no one I have to silence with my soul-stealing blade, made of dragon tooth and igneous rock. Man, it's gorgeous.) On test days, one of the-I get the feeling they're not exactly special-ed, but that's really the best name right now-teachers takes several students (some of the ones that are most often subject to my Blade) to another room to take their test. This makes the room even quieter. I often get my test done, if not first, then second or third. So then I get about an hour to do whatever I want to, so long as it's quiet. Usually I choose to write. After all, it's a perfect time. Today, however, the teacher had a project she wanted us to get started on. So I grabbed everything I needed and got to work. Unfortunately, the person sitting across from me was making the only sounds in the room. He has a voice that you can easily pick out of a jumble of voices, so naturally when it's the only voice it's pretty distracting. So I had to stop working.

I don't know why, but after I stopped I spent some time just looking at the ceiling not doing anything. I guess I was just relaxing. But when I started paying attention to the room around me, the first thing I noticed was in my peripheral vision. I don't know what it was, but it was enough to catch my attention.  R.J. What on earth was he doing? So I followed his motion as he threw something across the room. E.G. caught it. I had just stumbled across a cross-room duel, which included spear throwing, upside-down gun shooting, and grenade throwing. 

Now, usually, interactions like this are accompanied by sound, and are just plain annoying. But when it's just the motions, all exaggerated and silent, it's ruddy hilarious. And I had to stifle all of my laughter because people were still taking their tests. 

Then, and this was the highlight, E.G. got ahold of a meter stick. R.J. had been moved across the room so as to discourage cheating (there were only 2 people per table), but had left his bag beside E.G. So he got ahold of it with the meter stick and tried to pick it up. Apparently it was really heavy, and it fell right to the floor. That was funny on it's own, but the teacher didn't even notice, which made it even funnier. Then he managed to bring the bag close and started digging through it. He would pull things out, glare hilariously across the room at R.J. and then place the object on the table. Except-He took R.J.'s asthma inhaler-at least I think that's what it was, I wasn't exactly nearby-and put it into the pocket of his hoodie. Then he pulled out a PopTart. Supreme glare. He shoved it into his hoodie, like you do when you're trying to hide something, you know? You hide it under your jacket? So he stuffed this PopTart into his hoodie. Then he pulled out a large black notebook, and he glared even bigger. Then, I don't know how, but he managed to stuff this notebook into his hoodie. Now perhaps I should say here, that he wasn't shoving this stuff into the bottom of the hoodie. He was shoving stuff into the head hole. And when your head's in the way, there's not exactly enough space for a notebook that big. Then he proceeded to make sure the bag was completely empty and then put it on his head. Later, when he held R.J.'s "heart" up to the sky, he looked like a priest worshipping some sun god. Blimey, it was hilarious! And I couldn't make a sound.

Also-and personally, I think this is the best part-they knew I was watching the whole time. So every time I laughed, they laughed. And every time one of them would look at me, especially E.G., I couldn't help but laugh.

Okay, maybe this was a "you had to be there" situation, but I just thought it was a gift to be able to watch a totally silent conversation take place, not to mention an absolutely amazing comedic opportunity.