Darth Vader and the Fart Heard Round the World

In spite of the dramatic and difficult things happening in the world today, we cannot forget the universe also conspires to give us gifts to just makes us laugh. Remember the line from Modern Family when the new iPad comes out on Phil Dunphy's birthday? Phil says, "It's like God and Steve Jobs got together and said, "Happy Birthday Phil!"

Unexpected gifts that make us smile still occur.


Something like this...

This is my funny friend Greg, just a regular guy dressed up as Darth Vader for Halloween. His wife Trish is Princess Leia.

Greg and Trish

Before Halloween festivities Greg tried out the new hoverboard his boss gave him. As he made his big entrance Trish filmed it and caught his spectacular wipe out. His daughter Hayley came right over and asked if he was ok, Greg said he thought he hurt his shoulder. Hayley then asked if she should call 911. Greg said, "Are you crazy? I don't want anyone to see me like this!" Greg's 5 seconds of life have gone viral on viral - over 100 million views. He has been on Jimmy Kimmel twice, Inside Edition, Extra, Good Morning America and simply all over the world. He had 11 million views just in Denmark alone.  (?)  The Universe conspired to make my friend Greg laugh. The story those 100 million people who watched Greg don't know is just 8 weeks before that night, his incredible son David was killed in an driving accident.  David was on his way to work out when he was hit by another car. He died at the scene, an unbelievable tragedy. David would have loved this video and would have taken a lot of joy laughing at his dad. Who knows, he might have even been behind it, and enjoyed it even more knowing Greg can't get him back.

Another story of unexpected consequences is my cyber friend Elaine Ambrose. She is an award winning author of 10 books, 450 blog posts and many magazine articles.  One fateful day she farted in an MRI machine during a test on her knee then went home and wrote about it. read it here It is one of the funniest blogs I have ever read. The best part? Watching it go viral. It was picked up by several online magazines that she regularly writes for, then translated into German, Italian, Korean, Japanese and French. After reading and enjoying the blog, people would google her name, go over to Amazon and buy her books! Brand new fans. Fans from a fart. Fart fans.

This is what life can do if you let it. Trish and Greg easily could have stopped living after David died. They could have decided that to smile again would be impossible. But look what happened when they went on living.....

Elaine could have gone home and put her head under a pillow and concentrated on being embarrassed, embarrassed with a bad knee and an inability to stop a fart. But she didn't, she wrote about it and let us all laugh with her and she has so enjoyed what the world gave back to her.

There are gifts life has to offer....in the worst of times, when we least expect it, from the silliest places...

Life is still good. I promise