I'm Not Funny Part I

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always tried to make people laugh. I’m not like a clownish, slapstick type person because I’m cool, too. The hundreds of comic books and graphics novel in my closest would strongly disagree with that completely though, and the characters in Starcraft would second that notion. Delusion is a hell of thing! The issue of whether or not I’m a nerd or I’m cool is not up for debate – it’s not the point of this particular posting. I’m mainly expressing that the type of humor that best fits my personality is of the dry sort. I’ve had a pretty dry sense of humor since – well, as far back as I can remember.  For humor to be dry, it must be delivered with a serious tone that hides the extremely absurd content. I THINK I’m pretty good at this, but I’m not great with the extremely part. I have a history of delivering dry humor sans the extreme absurdity part.

For example, in elementary school, my fellow students and I were all sitting around the teacher discussing personal hygiene as a lesson. The teacher would ask questions like “how long should we brush our teeth?” or “is it okay to have dirt under our nails?” Well, maybe not the second one, I couldn’t think of another question about personal hygiene she would ask a group of 4^th graders – “how often should you shave?” or “which directions should little boys and girls wipe from?”

She did ask, “How often should people take showers?” I raised my hand thinking I would get a few cheap laughs and said, “Once every two weeks.” Now, I have great parents and I’m pretty certain I bathed at least once a day, but I thought this would be funny. I don’t know if it wasn’t absurd enough (because there is no way that isn’t funny to 8 year olds) but no one laughed (in fact, I think the other kids started inching away from me). The teacher’s response was an awkward, “Yeah, but maybe it should be a little more often than that.” She also made a weird face like she could smell something stinky – me! I bet in that lady’s mind I was the little stinky white trash kid in her class. I could see her sitting at home with her cats, eating a dinner for one, staring through the window pondering what to do about old Stinky in her class. I bet she even thought about calling Child Protection Services. Luckily, it never really came up again. Aside from the periodic lice tests and getting deodorant instead of candy in my Halloween box (also in my Valentine’s box), things just went back to normal.