Wednesday's PFD: Toy Boat

Life Preserver by respres, on Flickr

The next several Wednesdays are PFD's on mebrower.com

You may know "PFD" to be a Personal Floatation Device, also known as a Life Preserver. Those are handy to have if you find yourself in an accident on the water. They keep you afloat until help can rescue you. But those are not the PFDs that I'm referring to.

Wednesdays are my "Personal Fun Days!"

I'm going to share a few things that have made me laugh, and may possibly amuse you too. Like a Personal Floatation Device, I'm hoping Personal Fun Days will help all of us to stay afloat when life's waves come crashing in.

This Wednesday we're going to focus on "Toy Boat." Not the item, the phrase.

Do me a favor.

Say quickly and out loud, "toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat."

Okay, try again. I'll wait.

How did you do?

If you're like me and my family, your confused and perplexed, and hopefully laughing your butt off! I'm pretty sure it can't be done by normal humans, at least not 5 times fast!

"Toy boat" is a tongue twister that I cannot repeat quickly. Something breaks in my brain when I try...and all that will come out of my mouth is laughter and giggles! It's especially fun to witness another, otherwise capable speaker, make the attempt too. Be sure to ask someone else and see how they do too. It's a hoot! 

My eight year old has learned a few versions of various tongue twisters recently and it got me searching for more. The other night our family spent quite awhile bustin' our guts with laughter as we attempted to say, or quickly repeat, some of these simple phrases.

Here's a couple more fun ones to try and quickly repeat:

• "Whistle for the thistle sifter"
• "Unique New York"
• "Pleasant mother pheasant plucker"

(Be careful who you're with when trying that last one!)

I'm sure there's some smart people who know just what is happening in our brains as we struggle to properly pronounce these relatively simple phrases. What's wonderfully humorous for me is that I'm caught by these tongue twisters every time I attempt to say them. I read the phrase to myself and think these are so easy to speak. There's no reason why I can't...except that whenever I attempt to, I can't!

And I find that hilarious!

And my sons think it's awesome!

As our family was laughing together over these simple phrases I was reminded how much fun it is to just laugh. Especially laughing together. After a few minutes we couldn't stop. All four of us were hootin' and hollerin' all the while trying to spit out "toy boat, toy boat, toy boat" again and again.

Proverbs 17:22 tells us that "A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones." The Amplified Bible says, "A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones."

I do not want to have dried up bones! I want to be filled with joy, and health. I'm going to work on taking my laughter medicine! When the days come that make me want to flip the bird to the world around me, I'm going to do my best to try and say "toy boat" five times fast! That'll get me going on the right track in a hurry.

Each of us control our own attitude. We always have a choice in how we will relate to our circumstances. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't feel pain, or grief, or suffering. But we can choose how long we dwell there. We can repeat "toy boat" a few times and get our belly laughing, or we can use some other choice expletives.

I'm working on choosing joy. I hope you will too!

For many more tongue twisters you can always google them. Or here's the link where I found mine.

How about you? What's your favorite tongue twister? What do you do or turn to when you need to add some joy and laughter to your life? Please share in the comments...I need some new material!

Jesus loves you and I think you're pretty cool too,

Mike