Contributor Carole McDonnell’s short stories and essays appear online and in print, in speculative fiction, ethnic, and Christian publications. She lives in New York with her husband, two sons, and their pets. Wind Follower, published by Juno Books, is Carole’s first novel. Her voice adds plenty to our discussion, so I welcome Carole and her column Faith in Color to Allaboutrace.com.

The hubby and I have taken in our son’s friend’s Pit Bull, Hemo. Lord knows, I was scared about having a Pit Bull in the house. But Carmen and several friends convinced me that Pits were generally very sweet dogs unless they were trained to be otherwise. Well, having Hemo here has contributed to a great deal of unintentional humor in the house. So I found myself pondering humor….especially the kind of humor found in bad or uncomfortable situations, the kind of humor many minorities specialize in.

But first, a little about Hemo’s shenanigans.

In my house I get very nervous when all goes quiet. Oftentimes, it just means trouble. It could mean younger son is upstairs eating some chocolate cookies my hubby snuck him. It could mean younger son is filling the bathtub preparing to take a bath and causing the bathroom tub to overflow through our already rickety floorboards. Well, now that Hemo is in the house I’m even more on my toes.

So yesterday, there I was enjoying the silence and the peace when suddenly I realized I shouldn’t be enjoying the piece. I walked upstairs and what do I see in my bedroom? A trail of mattress stuffing led me to a big, gigantic trench in my mattress. Okay, I didn’t exactly fall apart because the mattress is as old as it comes and we were trying to save up for a new one anyway. But I made the mistake of sitting down on said mattress and peering down in the depths of the newly-gnawed trench. When I got up, there was something stuck to my butt. (Please don’t ask why my butt was bare. After I take my son off the school bus, I tend to write at the computer in only my underwear. Hey, I’m a recluse and no one’s gonna visit and some part of me just doesn’t like wearing clothes.)

Well, turns out I had sat upon a glue mouse-trap. We have them all around the house because this old house has holes everywhere and there are some very persistence mice in this place. As it so happens, Mr. Hemo found one of these traps and got tangled up with it, finally losing it on our bed. Well then I ended up with this big mouse trap on my butt. I had to shout to hubby to come and rip it off. (‘Cause I was too fearful of hurting myself. I’m absolutely terrible when it comes to ripping off band-aids.) Hubby ripped off said glue trap. Luckily there were no mouse parts attached to it. And later we turned the mattress around and went to bed.

So that was that. But last night, after I had pumped myself full of magnesium/calcium/zinc/D3/Bcomplex and water, I went to bed. I slept pretty well. But of course early morning is always entirely out of my hands. Younger son tends to enter our room with plans of his own. And Hemo pretty much rules the house by now. Well, this morning I suddenly hear the front door open. I slap hubby on the butt and wake him up, ordering him to dress quickly, quickly, quickly, and go get younger son. So hubby tries to get dressed but there is Hemo jumping on him and hubby shouting that he doesn’t like his “male organ” being attacked by a dog early in the morning or at any time. Hubby then disappears down the block semi-dressed in the snow looking for younger son. By this time I’m dressed. But only in a housedress and really weird haus-frau slippers with my nappy-nearly-dreaded hair flying in the wind. We shout out to the neighbors: “Have you seen Gabe?” The neighbors send their kids looking and it’s on. Everyone’s looking everywhere. Then later some person stops by the house with Gabe in his car and says, “I saw Gabe down the road and brought him here.”

Ah I love my neighborhood! This is what neighborhood is about. The funny thing, though, is that much of this probably wouldn’t happen in a richer neighborhood. Oh, people are kind and all that but only in a working glass neighborhood would I have felt free to stand outside in my house frau outfit with my nappy hair. Only in a working-class black-white-Hispanic-Chinese-East Indian neighborhood would kids be up so dang early playing around on their bikes ready to look for a runaway kid. Only in a working class neighborhood would some strange person actually know who your kid was and where your house is. I’m sure in this town everyone knows everyone’s business.

This leads me to humor: racial humor, ethnic humor, working class humor. If it’s not mean spirited, I love it. I love Carlos Mencia, I love Chris Rock. I love the Blue Collar Tour. I love these guys because they talk about poverty and racial issues and all the treasures one finds in the darkness of poverty and racism. I love Chinese and East Indian comics too. They may not talk about prejudice and poverty (although some do) but they talk about how whites and other ethnic groups see them. They talk about racial expectations and weird family issues and strange ethnic neighborhoods.

Father in heaven, thank you for humor. Thank you for joy. Thank you for enabling us to laugh even at those things which distress us. I still hate mice, and I definitely need a new mattress, but I love it that I can get up and walk outside looking frumpy and unmade and my neighborhood doesn’t blink an eye. Thank you lord, for the working class. As Abraham Lincoln said, you must love the common people, because you made so many of them. Bless my town, Father God and help the poor kids to see joy and hope and beauty in their situations instead of being tempted to drugs and hopelessness. I ask all this in the name of our Savior Jesus who was born poor when Love pitched His tent in the place of excrement. Amen.