Dead Crush #10

Every winter I lived in New Hampshire, my friend S. grew a big, bushy beard. And every year, as a rite of spring (which in New Hampshire actually comes sometime in July), he would choose an evening to shave it down to a Selleck-style ‘stache and proclaim that evening Mustache Night. The most exciting thing that could ever happen to you was to hear a knock on your door sometime in late May, when the days were long and the stupid snow was finally starting to disappear, and find S. on your porch in a tie and big old mustache. “Guess what tonight is?” he would say, and you knew, as you leaned on the doorway in helpless laughter, that things were going to get hectic.

The reason I bring up S. is because he’s the only male person I know, with the exception of the wonder that is John Ritter, who has made me pee myself with laughing (Steve Martin ALMOST made me pee. Almost.) I don’t know what it was about S., but pretty much all I had to do was look at him and I would start laughing, even if he didn’t have the mustache. On Mustache Night, S. was allowed to do whatever he wanted. For some reason, this usually meant getting drunk at a bowling alley and trying to feel up his friends, usually while wearing a three-piece suit or at least a vest. Or he would wrestle you. He would look at you cross-eyed and say “You smell pretty” in a creepy voice, and then try to wrestle you. I think every time he wrestled me I ended up peeing, or at least running to the bathroom in the nick of time. S’s girlfriend (now wife) pointed out quite frequently that S. only wanted to wrestle girls. I did have a little crush on S., but it didn’t have anything to do with wrestling. It was his ability to make me laugh until the tears ran down my face. If you can do this, I will be in love with you forever. Or if you have a girlfriend, at least have a little crush on you. (Aside: Choad never made me pee. He did make me laugh on occasion, just not very hard).

This picture of John Ritter is from my favorite Three’s Company Episode ever, the one where Jack and Janet go to some party on a tropical island they have to fly to, and Jack takes tranquilizers with a drink called The Rocket because he’s scared of flying. And when he gets to the party, he’s, well, Jack Tripper on tranquilizers and The Rocket. There were many zany dance moves and inappropriate double entendres. The first time I watched this episode, when I was about 8 years old, I peed myself as I lay on the floor helpless with laughter. And I was immediately in love.

Around this time, one of our church ministers gave a sermon about all of the dirty shows on TV that you shouldn’t let your kids watch. Of course Three’s Company was among them. I think this was at the point where they had Chrissy’s third replacement (Terry?) so the new ones weren’t really worth watching anyway. What me and my siblings really cared about were the reruns of the seventies episodes, which usually came on as my parents were making dinner. Halfheartedly, my dad would come in to tell us to change it to The Andy Griffith show or its equivalent, but he would invariably become engrossed in whatever the Three’s Company Misunderstanding of the day was. When something sexual was implied, he remembered his mission and barked at us to change the channel. After a while, my parents got tired of enforcing this rule, as they did with most rules, especially since it was kind of hard to prevent us from watching Dallas (another condemned show) when they weren’t ABOUT to stop watching that.

The way I see it, John Ritter was made for kids. He was the most brilliant physical comedian that ever lived, and I think he was way underrated. When he appeared as Joyce’s evil robot boyfriend on an episode of Buffy a few years ago, I nearly jumped up and down. It was perfect. I know he was on some kind of family sitcom when he died, but whoever his agent was should have known that he needed to play the weirdest, grossest, most John Wateriest roles available. Was he ever in a John Waters movie? Oh, he should have been. When I was eight, I loved him so much for his weirdness, his silliness. Nowadays I feel that I am often antisilly. I’m too cynical for silliness. This makes me feel sad, as I was all about silly when I was little. I would whip myself up into a tornado of silliness, until my parents would yell at me to go outside. I think I need some silliness in my life. Maybe I should start doing drugs again.

I must say, historically, that girls are way better at making me laugh myself into a state of helplessness and/or urination (though of course the dudes have helped to accomplish at least the helpless state on several occasions). Whoever says that girls aren’t funny (people do say this) needs to spend an hour or so with any one of my female friends. Of course, the things I find funny may not be funny to everyone. One of my favorite moments of crying with mirth (aside from the magic-mushroom induced ones—good times, good times) was about ten years ago, drunk or extremely hung over in the house I shared with my 4 college girlfriends. C., (one of these ladies) and I were lying on the floor, trying, together, to use a bottle cap as an ashtray. In response to something I said (sometimes I can be charming or at least kind of sweet when hung over or very tired), C. asked “Can I marry you?”

“Ok,” I said.

“Can my vow to you be ‘Crunch all you want, we’ll make more?’” asked C. tiredly.

I looked at her as I often did: in awe/disbelief that someone this perfect could be my friend. “Yes,” I said, then laughed until I wet my pants.