There’s something about seeing people get hit in the head by flying objects that really tickles my funny bone. Non-lethal/no damage collisions mind you. Tennis balls, baseballs, whatever.

My brother Jason (who reads this and might not be pleased with my telling this story) is the king of getting hit in the head. I think a lot of why I think its so funny is because of the following two stories:

Jason and I as kids in the backyard. I was perhaps ten or eleven, Jason always two years older. For some long forgotten reason, Jason is standing on a picnic table. For another long forgotten reason, I decide to throw a baseball straight up. Or what I think is straight up. It turns out I have somewhat of an arc in my throw, enough so that the baseball hits Jason directly on top of the head.

Now, even then, this was supremely funny to me. But Jason ices the cake. Instead of simply collapsing, Jason decides to jump (I can hardly type remembering this), and its no simple hop. Jason decides to jump out from the center of the table, doing barrel rolls. Like a crocodile in a death spin, Jason clutching the top of his head, cursing.

I think I got a serious pounding for that. Well worth it.

The second story. We’re teenagers, and desperately want a launch ramp for riding our skateboards on. Something about the design of our ramp is flawed and Jason has set out to fix it. For what must have been a very good reason, Jason is swinging the hammer at a two by four from below. So the hammer is swinging towards him, rather than the traditional away from him. I notice about three of these swings, and right as I’m about to make a stupid comment, he misses the two by four, and the hammer nails him right in the center of his forehead.

Obviously, you shouldn’t laugh at someone in a situation like this. But I wasn’t told about that rule, and had a good laugh anyhow. Jason had a swelled purple friend on his forehead for at least a day or more.

So what brings these stories to mind?

As I was driving back to work from lunch, I saw the most unique and singular incident. Picture a man walking his dog (the dog wearing a yellow rain slicker, as is the fashion amongst Oregonian canines). Out of nowhere, a yellow object at high speed meets the owners head. Right smack dab on the middle of his head. The object bounces a good twenty feet or so straight up, and (believe it) comes right back down on his dog’s head. As the man his clutching his head in disbelief, the dog leash is loose, and the dog is doing laps around his owner in a frenzy of confusion. I stopped, the guy was fine, the dog was fine. The object, a yellow golf ball, was fine, and we had no idea where it came from, but damn it was funny.