How Charlie Chaplin Saved a Marriage

by Victor S. Smith

Silliness, he knew, was the key to getting out of any predicament, no matter how impossibly frustrating. Bosses were amazed with balloon animals; clients delighted and humored by joy buzzers, whoopee cushions and canned string. But, his secret weapon, his coup de grace, the crème de la crème that had never failed him, not once in twenty years, was the old too windy umbrella pulling him out the room gag. Once, his fiancé, while in the middle of explaining that there was a new somebody-or-other, was confounded when in the middle of the living room an umbrella was produced, from seemingly out of nowhere, the hat that had formerly been precariously perched on his head fell off and was sucked out the room by an imaginary force five gale, the umbrella opened and Jacques was whisked out of the room, down the street. His relationship seemingly intact - for if she didn't actually say, "I hate you and I'm leaving your for Somebody-or-other," she didn't actually ever leave him - he sidled up to the bar and ordered an Absolut Apple-tini. And his parents said clown school would never pay off.

6S

Victor S. Smith, author of Sometimes It's Better to Stay in Bed, is a recovering economist who caught a writing bug penicillin isn't clearing up. His two blogs are Like Pollution and Marlowe's Sketch Pad.