A random funny story about volleyball

I’ve never read “Slaughterhouse-Five,” but I recently saw a reference, so for the completely out-of-context purpose of this story (since it’s about the furthest thing possible from war), let’s just say “All this happened, more or less.”

Volleyball at Chuck’s house — the usual time, the usual place, the usual players.

For some reason that even my unreliable narrator won’t try to guess, someone made a reference to “The Bridges of Madison County.”

It might have even been me, even though I’ve never read the book or seen the movie. Whoever it was, I’m almost certain it was something sarcastic.

OK, whatever — we’re playing volleyball, someone makes crack about “The Bridges of Madison County,” the game continues, ball goes back and forth, until …

“Hey, that was a really good book!”

Enough time had probably passed for three or four more wiseass remarks by the time one of my friends’ teenage younger sister uttered this sudden, spirited defense, which made the comedic timing of it spectacular.

Which would have been OK had the volleyball not been flying at me while I was laughing hysterically.

No, this story doesn’t end with the ball bonking off my head, but it did land right in front of me for a point, or a side-out. (Who can remember these things?)

This all happened more than 25 years ago — hence the multiple references to not being completely sure all the details are correct — but even though I’ve surely done it a ton of times since then, it was the first thing I thought of when I saw Joanne Gertstner’s piece about laughter coming out of nowhere.

So when has that happened to you?

And by the way, was “The Bridges of Madison County” any good?