Every day is open mike night at my house. Humor has a seat at our table, all day, every day. I think it should be a part of daily life to tell at least one joke a day, the worse the punchline the better. I say the worse, because although a great joke told with impeccable timing is a wonder to behold, did you ever notice that there is an awkward silence after all the guffawing is over, and everyone just stands there and wonders what to say next? How can you top the great joke? Naw, the best jokes are the ones that have you groaning at the ridiculousness of the punchline, because they give you something to talk about after it has been delivered. Usually, it is a great segue to deliver another horrible, crass, or just plain stupid joke of your own, kind of a one-upmanship contest of sorts.
I had ample opportunity to do field research on this phenomenon recently when my septic tank mainline decided to go all medieval on us. And by medieval, I'm talking about the 'lack of sanitation facilities' kind of medieval. It sucked. Big time. There was hand-digging in frozen ground for me and hubby, paying rotor-rooter services insane amounts of money to not fix the problem, unspeakable flooding, the works. What saved the whole thing from making it the most miserable time of our lives was straight up potty humor. I started it, and kept at it so ferociously, that even the joke-impaired husband got into the act, and instead of moaning over the hard labor and money flowing out the door (and not down the drains) we laughed about it instead. There developed a certain 'brown' theme that colored every aspect of our lives, both funny and not-so-funny. The overall balance, I tried to keep on the funny side, because anger and tears clean not a speck, replace not a pipe! I had everyone on guard against my 'ninja' humor-- mostly puns that snuck up on the unsuspecting recipient and delivered a punchline either so tasteless or undeniably witty that all they could do was roll their eyes and groan, admitting my mad, punny skills.
But it's all about taste. Most of the jokes told in my house are not fit for public use, they are that freaking bad. And it is a kind of shared secret language in the family that would make no sense anyway to anyone who over heard most of them. It's our flavor, our color, our taste in humor. You might not find a single thing that crosses my lips funny in the least, and I may look at you blankly if you tell me a joke that is over my head or out of my league. But I'll try to get it, to understand your flavor of humor, because I think it's an important way to bond with a person, and to take their measure all at the same time. If I can see what makes you laugh, and inversely, what makes you cry, I can know more about you than if I had a cheat-sheet with your life's bullet points on it. Humor is what makes us, sorrow is what breaks us. So if I knew what makes you whole, and what breaks you down, then all the stuff in between just falls into place.
Oh, and by the way, can you guess what was going through my head as I was staring into my septic tank for the umpteenth time trying to figure out what was wrong with it?
"I don't need this sh*t."
Yep. Mad ninja skills.
I had ample opportunity to do field research on this phenomenon recently when my septic tank mainline decided to go all medieval on us. And by medieval, I'm talking about the 'lack of sanitation facilities' kind of medieval. It sucked. Big time. There was hand-digging in frozen ground for me and hubby, paying rotor-rooter services insane amounts of money to not fix the problem, unspeakable flooding, the works. What saved the whole thing from making it the most miserable time of our lives was straight up potty humor. I started it, and kept at it so ferociously, that even the joke-impaired husband got into the act, and instead of moaning over the hard labor and money flowing out the door (and not down the drains) we laughed about it instead. There developed a certain 'brown' theme that colored every aspect of our lives, both funny and not-so-funny. The overall balance, I tried to keep on the funny side, because anger and tears clean not a speck, replace not a pipe! I had everyone on guard against my 'ninja' humor-- mostly puns that snuck up on the unsuspecting recipient and delivered a punchline either so tasteless or undeniably witty that all they could do was roll their eyes and groan, admitting my mad, punny skills.
But it's all about taste. Most of the jokes told in my house are not fit for public use, they are that freaking bad. And it is a kind of shared secret language in the family that would make no sense anyway to anyone who over heard most of them. It's our flavor, our color, our taste in humor. You might not find a single thing that crosses my lips funny in the least, and I may look at you blankly if you tell me a joke that is over my head or out of my league. But I'll try to get it, to understand your flavor of humor, because I think it's an important way to bond with a person, and to take their measure all at the same time. If I can see what makes you laugh, and inversely, what makes you cry, I can know more about you than if I had a cheat-sheet with your life's bullet points on it. Humor is what makes us, sorrow is what breaks us. So if I knew what makes you whole, and what breaks you down, then all the stuff in between just falls into place.
Oh, and by the way, can you guess what was going through my head as I was staring into my septic tank for the umpteenth time trying to figure out what was wrong with it?
"I don't need this sh*t."
Yep. Mad ninja skills.
