Fanny Blackhole's Last Laugh

Fanny Blackhole had a name that caused sniggers wherever she went.? Born as Frances, her parents had quickly dropped it to ‘Fanny’ with no thought to the potential it had for teasing in later years.? To them it was merely a name of endearment, for their beloved daughter.? And of course, although Fanny was bad enough… combining her first name with Blackhole, took things to a whole new level.?

So it was, that Fanny learned to have a sense of humour at a young age, and never looked back. She laughed when she’d worn her swimsuit to school under her uniform, only to have her brother drop off her pants to her in class declaring, “Fanny has forgotten her pants today…” She never did live that one down!

Then she’d laughed when her class had their first sexual education class and fannies were the talk of school for a week!? Worse, the teacher had asked the children to all write on a flip chart the names they knew for the female genitalia, and ‘fanny’ was right up there with the best of them.? “Ha ha, you’re named after a vagina, Fanny,” shouted Roger, unable to hold his laughter…"and vaginas are really big black holes, and your last name is Blackhole – that’s hilarious!”

Somewhere along the road ‘Fanny’ had managed to sneak into the insult category – “don’t be such a fanny…” and well Fanny laughed at that too.? If her name made people laugh, then spreading a little humour was never a bad thing.

But it wasn’t just children that laughed at her name, adults were just as bad!? Try going for a smear test and having a serious conversation about your genitalia when your name was Fanny Blackhole!? When she first went for her appointment, the receptionist asked her if this was a joke… “Afraid not,” laughed Fanny, “what’s happening today, by all accounts is no laughing matter.”

She remembered one nurse asking if she’d prefer to be called Fanny or Miss Blackhole and then snorting as she tried to contain her laugh.? “Errrr fanny is just fine,” she had replied, wishing the ground would open and swallow her in one.

And don’t get her started on her couples’ anti-natal classes!? While the women tried to be more mature, the men weren’t quite so accommodating; – and so, as she introduced herself to her new potential friends as Fanny Blackhole – she said, “Okay, it’s fine, I know I’m a Fanny Blackhole and we’re here to talk about babies and squeezing them out of fannies – let’s laugh it up!”? And laugh they did – from then on for the rest of the sessions laughter never seemed to leave the room.?

It was often the case that Fanny’s name – could become a fairly decent ice breaker, starting off new meetings with a bit of humour.? She smiled to herself when she went to start a new job, looking glam and her host thought she was a stripper!? “Wooo whooo, my birthday isn’t until the weekend, but Fanny Blackhole, come on through!” “Well as funny as that is, I’m afraid today is not your lucky day,” joked Fanny.? “I’m the newest member of the marketing team!”

“Oooops well in that case come on through – you’ll fit in nicely with our team of cracksters!”

Laughter served her well, and although the laughter she liked best was the one she shared with people, she also loved to laugh at herself when really the situation demanded it – sometimes if you didn’t laugh you would cry so for Fanny, laughter won out.

But today Fanny was laughing less and crying more.? Life was wearing her down and the realities and challenges of adulthood were everywhere – it seemed there simply wasn’t enough happiness to go around.? Laughter was indeed in short supply. Terrified her laughs were drying up, she decided to journey back to the start and resurrect the laughs that had made her ribs hurt and eyes run.?

She was on a mission to remember who had shared her journey and who had really made her laugh the most.? And so, she set about listing her top ten laughs ever.? It was going to be a fun journey back down memory lane.

Young fanny has an accident

As far as she remembered her first great laugh to make it in the box, was walking home from school with her friend.? They’d walk and talk so much each day; they’d sometimes miss the exit home.? And on this one day when they laughed so much, they could barely breath and peed a little!? Fanny couldn’t remember what was funny, but she remembered the laughter, all these years later.? That one could go in the box of memories she was making.? One day she would need this.

Fanny’s teenage shenanigans

Her mind then drifted to a childhood best friend, lying in her living room, in their bikinis with the heating up in excitement for a forthcoming holiday.? They hadn’t stopped laughing that day – so young, so innocent.? They had decided to place their beach towels on the floor, drink wine during the day and pretend they were there right now.? She smiled when she put the memory in her box.? Back then for a brief moment she’d considered changing her name from Fanny to Helen – but then she remembered the saying, ‘laugh and the world laughs with you…cry and you cry along.? “I’m going to stick with Fanny, Lacy,” she laughed.?

“I think the world needs a name like mine…” The two of them had creased over laughing then as her friend replied, “I think you’re the best fanny there’s ever been!? Never change you or your name.”

Fanny’s disastrous dates

University days came next, and Fanny remembered laying on a riverbed surrounded by friends, laughing instead of studying, prioritising the sunshine over the library.? She remembered that day fondly when they talked about boys and dreams instead of lectures and planned the life they hoped to live.? Fanny had been on, yet another disastrous date, and they laughed as she retold how she’d managed to sneak out a bathroom window to end the date early.? Laughs were everywhere back then, chasing deadlines, ditching classes, laughing at each other!?

Fanny’s fake tan disaster

Next, she remembered working life, with her favourite team, a young creative bunch.? Fanny had another fake tan disaster…and the team laughed lovingly about this for an age until they couldn’t speak and were banging the table.? This hadn’t been Fanny’s first tan disaster and it would no doubt not be the last.? The team found something to belly laugh about each day, but this laugh had come out on top.? It’s a good job she went down this route as she couldn’t imagine ever getting a very serious job with her name.

Fanny the bomber

Then there was the time at work years later when she’d left her milkshake on her desk in the open plan office on a hot summer’s day.? The next day, the yeast had caused it to explode, and milkshake ran on all the computers three rows deep and dried on the screens.? All day people were laughing that Fanny had been trying to bomb them.? She laughed too when she told her husband later, ‘no more oatmeal milkshakes for us!’

Fanny Blackhole goes down under

Off she went to Australia next when her scuba diving instructors had found her last name of particular good humour.? “Come on, is your name seriously Fanny Blackhole?” the hot scuba diving instructors had laughed at her in registration.? “Sure, is, Fanny Blackhole is ready to go diving!” she laughed.? She was young, she was fun, she was free she told them!? Who cared if her name last was Blackhole as she joined in on the joke.? That holiday had brought many laughs but none so much as when a crazy horse instructor took them on a ride they would never forget into the jungle and told them to kick the horses as hard as they could, hold on tight and scream ‘yeeha’!

Fanny in Mexico

Fast forward and she found herself in Mexico with her husband, laughing as they sat quietly in a steamed cave.? Her husband had shrieked with shock when the new age instructor threw cold water at him unexpectedly before making them chase him off a cliff into a cold pool of water.? To this day the memory never ceased to make her smile.

Fanny, fake nails, and flying poop

Then came the motherhood laughs, the time her husband and her laughed so hard when their daughter’s poop made it across the wall and hit the ceiling.? They were dumb founded at the sheer distance reached from someone so very small. To this day, Fanny still couldn’t believe how much poop could ever come out of a baby!? That incidentally was also the day she decided to ditch her fake nails.? Because, as you can imagine, fake nails, nappies and flying poop were a very very bad combination!

Fanny, friends and the perimopause

The laughs of late, came next.? The new laughs with friends, the laughs about getting older and the changes they were all going through, grey hairs, wrinkles and shrinking jawlines.? Who knew you’d have to worry about aching joints, bags on the TOP of your eyes and wobbly bits on your arms.? The menopause was coming for us all!? It was taking no prisoners and along the way it was throwing brain fog, and sweaty anxiety out to everyone in its wake – thank the lord Fanny wasn’t alone!? At least she hadn’t succumbed to botox yet – every time she spotted a wrinkle back came the fringe and poof it was all forgotten about.?

She’d been told there would also be changes to her ACTUAL fanny – dropping flaps and all sorts!? But fanny, in her prudishness hadn’t looked at her own fanny – well ever!? So at least that was one thing she didn’t have to worry about…It could go ahead and change, and she’d be none the wiser…

Fanny and her forever love

But now she was reaching her final memory for her top ten list.? It had to be right.? She cast her mind back over all the different versions of herself, and the ages, all the memories she had shared, all the people in it and she knew the laugh, which was the best, her last laugh, was the one she shared with her daughter. The laughs they shared were like no other.?

Theirs was the laughs that she wanted to remember the most, etch them to her memory and hold on tight too.? The laughs they had at the cinema, or the swimming pool, or dancing at the disco, or picking out their outfits, or licking chocolate from their fingers as they baked. Fanny wrote the last laugh on a card and lovingly put it in her box.? Her work was now done.?

Because there was another reason that Fanny had written her list of laughs, another reason why she had ventured back.? Another reason why she wanted to remember the humour that her name had kept in her life. Fanny Blackhole was dying…and she wanted to remember the good times.? And when she looked at her list, she could see weaved through it, the story of her life in laughter, and the people who had made her laugh the most.?

They were her people, the ones who had been with her, grown with her, laughed with her. She finished her list and smiled before wrapping a ribbon around her box.? Let her legacy be laughter, the laughter she had always enjoyed so much.

Fanny picked up a card and wrote on it: Fanny Blackhole's Last Laugh.

#womenshumour #mangoawards #funnypearls