You think you’re sooooooooo funny

I went to see Wade Rouse, author of America’s Boy and several other memoirs, at the library a couple of weeks ago. Besides reading from his own work, he talked about how humor is undervalued in the arts. It made me start thinking about what’s funny, and by “what’s funny,” I mean what makes me laugh. Granted, what makes me laugh may strike you as very un-funny, but, as you know, this is all about me. If you want to write about you, get your own blog. Or do something funny, stupid, or both, and I’ll write about you.

So what makes me laugh? Hm. Well, how about made-up words. Somebody sent me some the other day that made me laugh.

• Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.
• Karmageddon : It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

Also included in this email were some real words with made-up meanings.

• Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
• Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
• Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

I have to stop that now. I’m killing me over here.

Unintentional absurdity makes me laugh. I guess that’s redundant. Still. Like once in the eighties a guy pulled up to the gas pump at a convenience store I worked in. The driver’s side of the car was smashed in and the door wouldn’t open, so he had to crawl out the passenger side.

One of the tires was the tiny little spare you get with the car. He paid for three dollars’ worth of gas in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. And after he got the gas he had to get someone to give him a push start.

But you know what he had? A car phone.  

My husband makes me laugh.

One morning, after my sitting and staring phase, I went to the kitchen to make some oatmeal, which is what I do virtually every morning of the world. I emptied the last of the cereal into my bowl and started to throw the box away.

TBL’s reading the newspaper, and I swear to god he isn’t even looking at me. Normal. But he’s talking. To me. Before noon. Not normal. Not even safe, peoplr. But here he is, poking me with a stick.

But I digress, as I am wont to do. He says, “Throwing that away?”

Duh. Where’s Bill Engvall with his signs when you need him?

“Aren’t you going to look at it?”

Oh. My. God. He’s still talking!

Apparently I’m still in sit and stare mode, because that’s what I do. Well, technically I stand and stare at the empty, extra-large box of Quaker Oats.

“The box. Look at the box.” He  is not going to shut up.

“It’s a stupid, empty box. I’ve looked at it every morning for two months.” Now he was staring at me, and it was starting to piss me off. So I looked at the box. Really looked at it.

Here’s what it said: QUAKER GOATS. That was at the top. At the bottom it said: OLD-FASHIONED GOATMEAL.

At some point, the man had gotten a bottle of White-Out and taken the time to add the “G” to those words. Then he sat back and waited. That I didn’t notice until he pointed it out led him to believe I don’t pay attention. That he went to the trouble to do it at all leads me to believe he’s got way too much time on his hands.

My cats make me laugh. Of the five, two are utterly, bat-crap crazy. Only one is homicidal, and we drug him. Oh, like you’ve never want to drug something that got on your nerves? Please.

Anyway, Blinken is psycho-but-not-the-killing-kind. He’s on the small side, probably because his constant hysteria stunted his growth. And he is a hysteric.

All he has to do is see the cat carrier and he goes into a hissing, spitting, four-legged, flying hairball. And hair is the definitive word. He sheds more than all the other cats put together.

I are a handsome cat. Now.

About once a year, TBL sneaks up on Blinken, shoves him into the carrier and carts him off to be groomed. And not just groomed. Shaved. Ten years ago, the groomer left him with an awesome lion cut—all the fur cut close except on his head, legs, and the end of his tail.

Even though he looked downright studly, he was so pissed he sat in the kitchen for two weeks hissing at his ownself.

This year I begged TBL not to do it, and we’d just keep cleaning the hair and resulting hairballs.

But noooooo. The cat must be shaved. And he doesn’t look studly anymore. Now he just looks like an old bald man, liver spots and all.

What? You never had a bad haircut?

And I totally know how he feels. I got my hair cut two weeks ago and went to bed for a whole day. I did not laugh. I watched 17 episodes of King of the Hill. I still didn’t laugh.

Some things are just not funny.