funny

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Strange But True Stories in Fort Payne, AL: My Shoes Crumbled Apart on the 2nd Day of Work, Then I Had to Escape From a Bathroom Stall

You should walk a mile in my shoes… if they don’t disintegrate first.

Between my 4 months of unemployment and my current job at GameTime, I did a brief stint for a company I highly respect, but I knew I wasn’t a good fit there.  So after about a week and a half, I left them.  The following events took place during my first and only whole week there.  Even if they thought I seemed like a normal person who doesn’t encounter Jack Tripper-like situations, they will learn the truth now.

The weekend before starting the job, I came across a forgotten pair of some of my favorite shoes ever at my parents’ house.  So I wore them to church.  That went well.  Sure, I bought them in the year 2000 from American Eagle, but they were still cool and showed no signs of needing repair.  Very wearable.

So I wore them two days later on my 2nd day at work.  After the first hour passed, I noticed what looked like chunks of mud all around my desk and leading up to my desk.  Then when I got up to walk to the printer, I noticed one of my shoes felt especially “springy”.  That was because the middle of the sole had fallen off- along with various other parts of my shoes.

Right as I had realized this, my boss came up to me and asked me if I would be ready within the hour to go out and make some sales.  I said yes, then immediately called my wife to have her bring me some different shoes.  It worked, and I had about 15 minutes to spare.

The next day, I worked up enough courage to enter the bathroom stall which had a warning sign posted saying that the latch was broken and that I shouldn’t lock the stall door.  So I did it anyway.  I ignored the sign.  Good thing I’m limber. Though the distance from bottom of the stall to the floor was only about 18 inches, I was able to escape.  I’m glad, because this particular bathroom is located on the other end of the building where no one ever goes, and besides, I had left my cell phone at my desk.

I’m sure someone figured out it was “the new guy” that walked right through that warning sign and got locked in the bathroom stall.  But at least they never knew about my shoes crumbling apart.  Until now.  That’s just how the shoe crumbles.

Note to self: Copyright the phrase “That’s just how the shoe crumbles”.


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dad from day one: Jack Meets Max the Cockapoo (AKA “Falkor the Luck Dragon” from The Neverending Story)

Week 20 (4 months).

Fun Word of the Day-

Cockapoo: A  cross breed dog, bred for the first time in the United States, by crossing an American Cocker Spaniel or English Cocker Spaniel and a poodle (in most cases the miniature poodle or toy poodle), or by breeding cockapoo to cockapoo.  (Thanks Wikipedia!)

I have always been curious about the day Jack would finally meet his first dog. Up until this point, Jack has been introduced to several “dog like” creatures, including stuffed animal dolls of E.T. and Gizmo, but never an actual living canine.  We spent the past weekend with some good friends in Nashville who happen to own the coolest dog I have ever met.  Admittedly, I’m not a dog person.

But Max the Cockapoo is the equivalent of Falkor the Luck Dragon (that flying dog thing from The Neverending Story).  And that is a very good thing.  In fact, one of life’s biggest disappointments for me, as a kid in the ’80’s, was accepting the fact that there truly is no such thing as Luck Dragons.  Max the Cockapoo doesn’t fly through the air, but he is one of the few dogs I have met who truly accepts me as I am and who doesn’t smell bad.  He is one chillaxed dog. Therefore, he is totally my speed.

Naturally I had envisioned Jack and Max instantly becoming big buddies, since in essence, Max is the dog equivalent of Jack.  I imagined Jack smiling real big whenever Max would walk up to him and I even expected Max and Jack to take naps together.  But this bromance didn’t unfold that way, in reality.  It’s not that they didn’t get along.  It’s that Jack didn’t realize that Max was a living dog.  Instead, I believe, Jack thought Max was the shag carpet rug he’s used to lying down on in our living room at home.  To Jack, Max was simply a moving shag carpet rug.

But being the classy dog he is, Max didn’t take it personally.  However, Max still did his dogly duty of looking after Jack.  When Jack would cry, Max would rush over and sniff him.  Of course, we humans fed and changed Jack’s diapers accordingly, but Max’s habit of sniffing Jack was his way of treating him like the youngest pup in the litter.  Even when Jack pulled Max’s face fur, Max was cool about it.

It was by observing Jack and Max together that I taught myself that dogs don’t actually smell “bad things”.  Instead, every smell is simply just another interesting smell.  So the couple of times that Jack passed gas and Max hurried to come smell it, Max was simply getting a different form of a doggie treat.  At least Jack could give Max that much.  And it made great entertainment for us humans to watch.

For now, Max the Cockapoo is a white shag carpet in Jack’s eyes.  But one day, Jack will understand the difference between humans, rugs, and dogs.  And this inevitable friendship will occur.  Jack will befriend the canine equivalent of himself and the two of them will be Joe Cool buddies, at last.

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Currently Uber Popular Status Update Phrases: “Dear [Inanimate Object, Abstract Idea, or Business]”, Followed by a Hypothetical Question

Dear facebook status, how did I survive before you came along?

 

Nobody likes a whiner, right?  Well, now thanks to this uber popular status update method, you can complain while sounding “cute” and funny.  This formula can also be used to say you like something- but in a more creative way.  Just address a subject that will never actually see your status update or even have the ability to respond, then ask a question that either has no real answer or an implied answer. Here are a few examples:

“Dear Starbucks, what would I ever do with you?”

“Dear teenager in the car in front of me who is texting, when will you realize what you are doing is going to get you in an accident? Ugh!”

“Dear Friday, why were you late this week?”

It’s really that simple.  In fact, this format of a status update is so popular that there’s a good chance that at any given moment of the day, you will not be able to read your entire status update page without seeing it used at least once, in some form.  Now, get to work.  Use the formula and you too can appear to be creative, funny, and “cute”.  (Also works well on Twitter.)

“Dear [Inanimate Object, Abstract Idea, or Business]”, Followed by a Hypothetical Question

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Currently Uber Popular Status Update Phrases: “Darn You (Insert Here a High Calorie Food Item or Form of Exercise)” and “Just Sayin’…”

Darn you push-ups and curls!  And chili cheese fries…

We are exposed to an ongoing conveyor belt of snippets from our facebook friends’ lives, thanks to status updates.  From sadly and helplessly watching a person’s romantic relationship fall apart through relationship status changes and removals of entire photo albums, to discovering a another new spin-off of Farmville that we now will have to start blocking, the culture of facebook has been integrated into our everyday lives.  When it comes to status updates, I am more of an conscientious observer than an active participant.  So that evidently makes it my job to be the one to point out two phrases I’m seeing multiple times on a daily basis:

1) “Darn you (insert here a high calorie food item or form of exercise)”

2) “Just sayin’…”

Though you probably already know the connotation of both of these phrases (and that’s a big reason you chose to read this post today), I will offer the courtesy of explaining the usage of these facebook status gems.

Your facebook friends who are most likely to use the “darn you” status update are often the ones who give you a daily play-by-play of their work-out routine as well as an itemized list of the foods they eat each day.  When a “darn you” person has just experienced an annoying exercise at the gym, they might say, “Darn you, elliptical machine!” for example. And then a few hours later when they go out to dinner with friends and someone shares their Triple Chocolate Cheesecake with them, then you better know what’s coming up on your facebook feed: “Darn you, Triple Chocolate Cheesecake!”

However, in a more practical world, it seems people should say “bless you” before naming a high calorie food.  Who knows?  Maybe it would actually miraculously not metabolize into fat?  Maybe people should say “bless you” before naming an exercise, for the chance it would do twice or thrice as much good as it normally would to their body.  To curse an inanimate object that already knows it has a negative connotation seems to only add insult to injury. But then again, we don’t live in a practical world:  Instead, we live in a world where the inventors of Snuggies are millionaires.

While it’s typically exercise and high calorie that gets darned (literally cursed to hell for eternal damnation, in the hope that’s possible), I’ve also seen the “darn you” status update applied to weather (mainly snow), local traffic, and episodes of Glee that feature especially catchy songs.

As for “just sayin'”, it’s always applied at the end of a sentence- often after about 2 or 3 sentences of advice to another person or inanimate object: “So I just got back from the grocery store and everybody’s freakin’ out over bread and milk. It’s not the end of the world, people!  It’s just snow!  Just sayin’…”

“Just sayin'” implies the thought “now really take some time to think about what I said, but no pressure, really.”

Here’s another example:

“Some people really spend way too much time on facebook. There is a such a thing as leaving your own house and hanging out with actual people. Just sayin…”

If a person is really talented, they may try to attempt to use both phrases in the same status update: “Darn you, mother who is pretending not to speak English as her three kids run wild around the store!  Ever heard of actually having some control over your own kids in public?  Just sayin…”

If from now on, you never see “darn you…” and “just sayin’…” on facebook without thinking back to what you read here today, then I’ve done my job as a conscientious observer who shares my findings with the general public.  If nothing else, from now on, see if you can make it a whole day on facebook without seeing either of those phrases at all.  I bet you can’t.  Just sayin’…

7 Comments Posted on People, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Humor with Laugh Tracks Vs. Subtle Comedy: Why Jokes Don’t Make Me Laugh

What makes a person funny?

Recently at the place I used to work, they hired a motivational speaker.  His whole two hour bit was infused with “jokes”.  I guess a few people noticed that I wasn’t laughing at every joke along with them, for the most part.  It’s because very seldom does a joke make me laugh.  The way I process jokes, they are either for kids (“Why was six afraid of seven?”), for people without a good sense of humor (fans of Larry the Cable Guy and Dane Cook), and/or for the dirty-minded (more extreme than “that’s what she said…).  I think “jokes” are cheesy.  When a person tells me, “Oh, I got a joke for you,” I just wait for my cue and give them a courtesy laugh.

So what is funny?  For the most part, when something is subtle and isn’t necessarily supposed to be funny is often when it’s the funniest to me. I used to work in an office 9 hours every weekday and in the midst of the afternoon lulls, I found little things to amuse me. I would start laughing out loud and no one would know why I was laughing. And the truth is, these things probably weren’t funny to anyone else.

Here’s one example: A cliché phrase I had to hear a lot around the office was “crunch numbers”. So I thought to myself, “What if they made a cereal for adults called ‘Number Crunch'”? It will be made with whole-grain and would be in the shapes of the numbers 1 through 9. That way, accountants and other professionals who work with numbers all day would have the appropriate cereal to eat in the morning.

Here’s another: One day one of my co-workers came back from lunch with a jar of candy from Cracker Barrel. They were Atomic Fireballs- the kind we had when we were kids. She offered me one. I explained to her that I only like candy that has protein in it. (Example: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, etc., but not Skittles, Starburst, etc.)

Then she said, “I wonder what Fireballs are made out of…probably just sugar and water.” I immediately started laughing when she said that because I got this image in my head of someone biting down on a fireball and all this water gushing out of their mouth.  That, to me, is hilarious.  Maybe because it’s absurd.

My theory that “jokes aren’t funny” can be tested by the fact that funny stand-up comedians don’t tell really tell jokes anymore. Mainly they talk about awkward and annoying social situations.  Though some comics, like the late Rodney Dangerfield, can be funny mainly because of all of just one-liners. So I guess one-liners are funny. Like Chris Tucker having a career simply based on one line: “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!” But delivery and composure ultimately land or crash the comedic aspect.

And I guess another thing that is funny is when people do stupid things and get hurt. People falling down is always funny. It works for Johnny Knoxville. Okay, so here’s what is funny to me: random observations, awkward social situations, one-liners, and people hurting themselves. That, my friends, is comedy.  Not some lame fake-story that ends with a pun or a curse word, prompting me to laugh: If I have to be reminded it’s funny, then… it ain’t funny.  I’m just not a “laugh tracks” kind of guy.

*If you liked this post, you may want to try reading “The Art of Being Funny” by Ben Wilder and also “What is Funny?” by Jessica Muto