THE EDITOR, SirONE THING that we should get down on our knees and say special thanks for each day is our Jamaican sense of humour. Without it, where would we be? The mental institutions would not have the capacity to accommodate us as we slowly slip over the edge. It is our sense of humour that keeps us sane when it seems all else around is leading us to the mad house.
My friend who emigrated to Holland came to visit the other day. She said "What I miss most about Jamaica is that I don't get to laugh as much as I used to." She said, "I can easily drive to work every day for two weeks and not crack a smile. At least when I am in Jamaica, something or somebody is either going to p_ss me off royally or I am going to have a real belly-jerking laugh."
I related to her how the other day I was stopped by a policeman and he, and rightly so, was giving me a ticket for exceeding the speed limit in the excess of all of about five km/hr. I was not having a good day and I was not amused. The police handed me the ticket and said "see yu sammons here" and of course, being in a very bad mood, I said "sammons or summons?" He looked at me without skipping a beat and said "sammons and yu cyan go a Liguanea and buy a hardough bread fi eat wid it".
Well of course, I had to laugh if even just for his quick retort and off I went, me and my sammons. My friend left me at the apartment and as all Jamaicans do when they arrive from foreign lands she went on a sojourn to find all things Jamaican which she loves and which she can't get abroad: Excelsior crackers, a hot Tastee patty that you have to eat while driving and scream bloody murder when the hot meat drops on your leg, a Hellshire fish, bun and tin cheese and a 'win' fry chicken down at Silver Slipper Plaza (or so she says).
She came back later and said that she just got her laugh for the day. She said, "I passed a man on Old Hope Road and he had his ear carefully placed over the gas tank while rocking the car back and forth. So I slowed the vehicle down and said to him, 'are you o.k.'? To which he replied, while still rocking the car, 'Mi gas gauge bruk. Mi jus a check fi si if wat me have will tek me home'" only in Jamaica.
It is said God never gives you more than you can handle. Well, I think in our case, he knew what our load was going to be: just that, a load, and so he said, "I need to give them coping skills and so was born 'the Jamaican Sense of Humour'."
I am, etc.,
ELIZABETH HIND
elizabethbuchananhind@uw
imona.edu.jm
