12/29/05

Knock Knock

The other day at the mall I saw a kid wearing a pretty stupid t-shirt. I think it said something like, "Know how to keep a moron in suspense? (See Back)". And then, naturally, on the back it said the same thing, except with "(See Front)".

This is not exactly state of the art for modern humor.

But I'll tell you, I was glad he wore it. It pleases me greatly to see people embracing humor that way... going out of their way to spread the gospel of what they find funny, every place they go. I think that's a sign of a healthy culture. It's no different than when my goofy uncle Mark asks if you know why the three wise men were dressed in firemen's attire, and when you say "I don't know, Uncle Mark, why did the three wisemen show up wearing fire suits?" he says "Because it says right there in the bible that they came from afar!"

I realized a while back that jokes are really subjective, and I figured out shortly after that my sense of humor isn't even all that common. Even at my funniest, the best I could hope for is to amuse five, maybe ten percent of the population. I can live with that.

There's no better feeling than to make someone laugh, I think. Really, really bust-a-gut cracking up, I mean. No matter what else has happened that day, or that year, for that moment everything seems to have fallen into place perfectly.

So to strive for that, to make an effort to spread joy and cheer throughout the mall, however you attempt to do it, is an effort we should support. Of course the results will vary, and the success rate may be meager. But so what? For every hundred groans and eye rolls, there will probably be one or two smiles of realization and stifled giggles.

"To keep a moron in suspense... Ha!"

So while I'm sorry if some of my jokes fall flat here, I don't really regret telling them. All I can do is offer to try again tomorrow, and leave you with this one - one of my favorites.

"Knock knock..."

2 comments:

Colin said...

Panther!

Colin said...

Panther no panth, I'm goin' thwimmin'!