Gride and Broom

Wedding speeches, an endurance sport at the best of times - unless of course it's you with the new rings on.

However, sometimes in such moments come unexpected pearls of relief. Moments that bring you back to full consciousness like a sharp slap to the face.

I was at a wedding recently slipping in and out of reality when the speaker in all his nervousness announced "gride and broom". Pow - he now had my full attention. I thought "how's he going to recover from this one..?"

Better than I could have ever imagined.

In a fluster he blurted out "Gride and Broom!" as if to resolve the situation he was now sinking deeper into. One more time "Gride and Broom!", now red faced and feeling the crowd grow restless it must have suddenly occurred that he'd mixed up the words.
So with a sense of relief he corrected himself once and for all - "broom and gride."

That was it for me. That was the final straw. With those last three words I was hurled into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Not the loud type of laughter, not in the joyful sense of laughter. More like the eyes watering, body convulsing, gasping for breath type of laughter - topped off with small high pitch squeaks.

For the remainder of the speech I was reduced to a smoldering heap of giggles and I can't remember much else from that point on unfortunately.
To finish, it has to be said that a good laugh is very therapeutic, albeit usually at the most inappropriate moments.