That Ain't Right!

Yesterday one of my church members helped me pick up something for our church and while there we were also getting some large light fixtures for his garage. There was a lot of stuff piled up in this room so I climbed in over it all and grabbed the first light fixture and turned to hand it to Nathan. As I handed it over to him I was just commenting that we needed to watch the box because it was tearing. As he grabbed the box, the corner of it hit a gallon of paint and it fell to the floor. Nathan started screaming and danced out the door, screaming all the way. I could not help myself and I busted out laughing, thinking the paint had hit his foot. As I continued to laugh, I looked down and I saw that the bottom of the box had ripped out and the light fixture, which probably weighed 70 pounds or more and fallen more than two feet and landed across all of Nathan's toes on one foot. I know, I should have gone rushing to his aid to make sure he was okay... right? But no... I started laughing even harder. You know, the kind of gut busting, tears rolling down the cheeks kind of laugh. I really wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I could not stop laughing. By this time he has run/danced down the hall and into a door that was three rooms away and he's still screaming and says, "I can hear you laughing all the way in here. You're not right." Yeah, I just started laughing more. I finally somewhat composed myself enough to go check on him and he is still walking around gingerly, limping and he kept saying, "I think my toes are broke." I cracked up again. He gives me this look and says, "thanks Pastor!" He then pulls off his shoe and the top of his sock has several circles of blood, and he screams, "oh my god, I'm bleeding." Being the gentle compassionate man that I am, I burst into laughter again. The poor man has smashed his toes and has several little cuts just behind his toe nails and I'm laughing at him. That ain't right. A little while later while driving down the road I asked him why is it that we tend to laugh when we see someone else get hurt. Isn't that really a strange reaction? I wonder what it is in us that makes us react that way? I'd like to say that I feel bad for it, but the truth is, I've had to fight off the laughter this morning as I sat here and wrote this. Again... that ain't right.

Oh... by the way... the tables were turned just about an hour later when we were moving a soda machine in our church and Nathan pushed the machine and pinned my little finger between the machine and a table. As he laughed, he said, "you had that one coming Pastor."

That ain't right.