Perspective Plus discussion

Why did the chicken stand on the Mobius Strip? To get to the same side! Bah-dum-bum.

That was a joke. It's silly,but recognizable as a joke. It has a beginning, middle, end and punch line. It will make any physicist laugh,and they are hard to amuse. Jokes. We tell them, some of us love play practical jokes, enjoy shows like "Punk'd" or "Deal with it" and most of us enjoy jokes on the whole.

Yet, the joke is not funny when its' personal. How many of us were the butt of a joke and heard, "Can't you just take a joke?", "You're so sensitive, lighten up", "You're overreacting", or "You have no sense of humor." How many of us have been told to get a thick skin, or to toughen up? I bust my friend's chops about stuff, and they me, but we also are aware of a fine line we do not cross. Teasing a friend about something we did in our drinking days, or in school is fine, but there are things we do not do or say to each other because they are not funny.

I have a vast sense of humor, frequently reaching for sarcasm as it's so easy,but I can spin a yarn with the best of them (must be my Irish blood). I am the one my friends call when they have had a bad day because they know I can make them laugh in seconds and help make the day a little better. I can laugh about a lot of things at my own expense, but some "jokes" still hurt. Some comments still sting, and there are old scars that have not quite ever healed.

I remember one night when one of my best friends "Nelly" and I were at our usual bar with her boyfriend and the rest of the group. I was about 24, she was 23, and I was pretty close to the size I am now, perhaps a little thinner, but not much. We typically sat on the end of the bar nearest the door at an "L" shaped bar, with the "L" at the door end of the room. That night, there were some young guys there who when they saw me come in started with "pig go home", just loud enough for me to hear. There were a couple of "soo-ee's" thrown in with the cackling laughter and high fives. I went to the other end of the bar where I promptly asked for 3 shots of butterscotch schnapps and 2 shots of root beer schnapps. The bartender knew us and knew that this was a LOT for me to order and that the rest of the group did not drink any of this. Now, "Nelly" and the guys were perhaps 2 minutes behind me as they had been helping me with a project and I promised them a round as thanks. "Nelly" came in in time to see me slam back #3, and I was finishing #4 when she reached me. Seeing the 4 empties in front of me, she looked at Amy, the bartender and said "What the (bleep)!", as I slammed #5. The guys at the end of the bar had now begun to moo, and the guys came in the door at that time.

Amy looked at "Nelly" and let her know that she didn't know why I was upset, but that I came in and ordered 5 shots before I said hello. The guys reached us and "Tony" took one look at the glasses, looked at the end of the bar where the mooing was getting louder and narrowed his eyes. Everyone turned to me, and I looked away. The guys took 3 steps toward the end of the bar,when Steve the owner came out of the kitchen. Amy gave him a run down, and he went directly to the end of the bar and threw them out. I heard one of the young men exclaim, loud enough for the entire room to hear,"This is so stupid! We have to leave because some fat B**** can't take a joke?"

I was then told by Amy and Steve that if anyone ever did anything like that again, to tell them, and let them handle it. It was a new thing to me to have people who would stand up for me. I had spent so much of school with "soo-ee" and "moo" as I passed, that I thought that perhaps it was the norm. So many young girls has burst into giggles once I had passed them in the mall, that perhaps they had been right and I was something to laugh at, to hold in contempt, to ridicule.

Often times, we laugh at things that are not funny as a stress relief ("I'm the kinda guy who laughs at a funeral")and yes, there are times when things are just funny to us, even though someone else had to be harmed to trigger it. We poke fun at the other, the different because we are trying to make it something we can understand. We try to fit in, so we may laugh at something that we may not find truly funny, but we don't want to stand out.

Words can hurt, words can heal, and that's no joke.

Those "guys" were ignorant jerks, and I hate that you experienced their "humor". But at the same time, I am so very happy that you discovered caring people that cared about you over profits from a few jerks. HUGGIES

To quote Dan Aykroyd, "We mock what we don't understand." Both drunken idiots and scatterbrained mall-dwellers can't understand anything beyond the narrow stereotypes they've been spoon-fed. And their minds are too tiny to open up. So, the mockery. That doesn't excuse it (nothing would), of course.

The tricky part is dismissing their hurtful words and laughter as the waste of oxygen that they are. Because words can and do hurt, just as surely as blades. Fortunately, words can also heal. That's part of what this group is all about, as I see it: getting the healing words to people who have been wounded.

Humor is subjective. I find the the Three Stooges to be hilarious,while others find them not so funny. Too many people find humor in the difference of others. Sometimes it is genuine humor to them, other times it is to hide an uncomfortable situation.

I had change pitched down my cleavage in high school every time I wore a tank top, too see me flinch at the cold metal. I didn't stop wearing tank tops because of it, and I made about $10 in 3 weeks. When they got bored with that, I had my rear groped while bent over in my locker, so I could never see who did it,heard "boom-ba-boom-ba-boom" uttered when I walked past and other "but it's funny" things happen to me throughout my school years, mostly high school, but other things happened in elementary as well.

It was all a joke to the ones who were perpetrating it, and perhaps they were correct that I could not take a joke, or that I was a freshman and did not know enough to defend myself yet. (This was before zero tolerance policies and it would have been solidly my word against theirs with "witnesses" being able to place them elsewhere. Don't worry, I got my own back more times than I can count. They just never realized it.)

These things made me more aware of humor, which is why I most likely developed a self deprecating sense of humor which I am trying to break. We've all done it. We feel the need to either put people at ease about our size or we feel the need to make the joke first so it won't hurt. My opening line many times was "Don't worry, I'm a vegetarian. So unless you're made out of veggies, I won't eat you if I get hungry."

We all have our own levels of what is funny, and what is not. For many, ethnic humor is where it's at, for others, insult comics. For me, it is people who tell stories that I can see myself, my family, or my friends in. I like that kind, when the comedian can tell stories on themselves and laugh about it as well.

I am not relating all of this as a "poor me" tale, but to show how far I have come, how I now understand what is funny to me and what is not and how now I can say "Not funny.", mean it,and not let myself be guilted into thinking that I overreacted.
I am grateful to have loving people around me that I can joke with and if they cross a line without knowing, will genuinely apologize when told.

That night in the bar, I was surprised to be defended by any one, let alone the bartender or the owner. We were regulars, but to be treated like a human being, was astounding. It was one of the first times in my life that I felt like a worthwhile person, and not some walking joke, and that may have been one of the many seeds planted in me that have lead me this far, and will take me beyond today.

Humor is a wonderful thing, but we must use it responsibly.