Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Wasted humor.


Even as a child, my mom said I took things very literally. (Why is it called a white sale if not everything is white?) Unfortunately, this means I don't get, or I may choose to ignore, many other people's jokes. I know I make more ridiculous jokes than almost anyone, and some are even puns, but they seem to make sense to me. I feel sometimes my humor is wasted though. Either I make a joke that I think is clever and there's too much noise, people just aren't listening, or I know more about that ONE subject than them, so I end up having to explain it. This morning for instance, I was thinking about giving Ben a card for helping with my computer that said "Thanks for all your hard work, but all I'm giving you is a big donut." Then I would give a donut to him. See, I thought it was clever. You know, a donut is like a big zero, as in, no money. Kelsey didn't think it was funny. She said if I had to explain it, it wasn't funny. Wasted humor. Then this one time a few years ago when everyone was stocking up on rice because the prices were going up and people thought rice was running out or something, mom and dad were talking about why they thought the rice was running out. I said "Maybe the rice fields flooded." Rice is harvested on flooded fields. Clever right? They weren't listening. Then when they say "What was that?" I repeat it, and it's no longer funny. Waste. I try and I try and all I get are, "What did you say?"s and "I don't get it."s. What does a person have to do to be taken seriously?