I once wrote a formal letter to this gentleman named Doug. The salutation read:
“Mr. Dough Baker:”
I didn’t catch it in my proofread, either. My buddy (the guy who employs my services to write formal letters every once in a while) burst out laughing the moment he got his hands on the paper. I thought it was funny as well…
But, back on topic:
I can handle humorless people. In fact, if I can make one of these people laugh, it makes my day.
However, there are two types of humorless people I cannot stand.
The first is the one who is just waiting for me to finish talking so he can pipe in his own experiences related to the story. These people usually don’t even realize I am telling a joke…as I often like to make real-life experiences into jokes. Halfway through my story, I can see the strain on their faces as they attempt to stifle their words until I am finished. At this point, I know two things. If I do so much as pause for more than a second in my story without leaving some sort of cunjuntive phrase hanging, I will lose my chance to talk for a long time. Second, they are done listening and, therefore, done laughing.
The second is the person who feigns laughing all the way through the story, but then peers at me in total incomprension when I actually reach the funny part. This lady at work is like this…she giggles constantly in casual conversation. However, when we actually do or say something that is intended to be funny, she gets uncomfortable and walks away.
To cope with the humor impaired, you need to get a copy of the Dave Barry article on Humor Impairment Disorder (prefered method: buy and read all his books until you find it).
Get the whole article, photocopy it, and post that up on a wall near where you normally encounter Humor Impaired Persons (HIP). When the strain gets too great, glance up at the article, and laugh.
Or build one of the pants yourself, and give as a Christmas gift or something.
I think I’ve killed at least one thread with humor. I knew the posters were serious about their subject, but it was really pretty trivial, and I honestly thought they’d be glad to have a little light relief. Boy, was I wrong.
What protocol should be observed – never, ever post a lighthearted remark when the other posters are so serious? Or should I continue to hope there’s an Eve out there?
Some great typos in here! Here’s some of my favorites:
One made by my mom years ago, when instead of typing, “I was so sorry to hear of your wife’s passing,” wrote, “I was so sorry to hear of your wife’s passion.”
A middle school math textbook my dad was editing, that made it to the final copy edit before somebody noticed that one equation involved the union of the sets F and K.
And not a typo, but my first husband was a radio announcer right out of college in VERY small town southern Ohio, and one day lost it on air when he read an ad for Elberfeld’s Department store, which was having a white sale, and the sheets were treated with: COME Clean!!
I have one friend who’s humor impaired. She knows she’s supposed to respond to a joke or humor, so with a totally straight face she says, “That’s very funny.” Hey, at least she TRIES.
I must have a great sense of humor, becuase my friends, family, and coworkers are always telling me I do. And I laugh all the time. But please do NOT tell my any “jokes”! Most of them are trite and contrived. I like “natural” humor, for lack of a better term, or a cleverly told real story (eg The Blimp).
My best friend and I do a little skit about people like this. We don’t actually know anybody like those mentioned in the OP so the basis of our skit is “What if there were two guys with NO sense of humor?”
We’ll get in the car or something and stare blankly straight ahead and say things in our most monotonous voices like “Hey man, how is it going?”
“Fine thanks, and you?”
“Pretty good. What are we going to do tonight?”
. . .etc. And we try to see who laughs first.
It’s probably a lot more effective in person now that I think about it. . .
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Punoqllads *
**To cope with the humor impaired, you need to get a copy of the Dave Barry article on Humor Impairment Disorder (prefered method: buy and read all his books until you find it).
Or alternatively, you could google “this column is funny” “dave barry”. Go to the third link, or go directly to http://lipscombunderground.tripod.com/issues/issues-S00-LU16.html (scroll down about a quarter of the way). It’s one of his best. Definitely check it out.
That column is the first thing I thought of upon seeing this thread title.
bop the humour-impaired on the nose. that’s my solution.
back home, whenever the cable channels on tv go on the fritz because of maintenance problems, my cable operator scrolls the message “Please bare with us. We are dedicated for your entertainment.”
never ever fails to crack me up! yeah sure, baby…bare with you for the sake of entertainment. TV sure as heck can’t beat that!
one of my friends, on the other hand, just says “oh a spelling mistake.”
COME ON, WOMAN!! not even a tee-hee? :smack:
and miller, dontcha think sharing the gravy is sometimes more fun than eating alone? i kinda like dissolving into a hysterical puddle of giggles with a friend.
A quick note about this: I actually tried this and unfortunately it doesn’t work. (Not the pants, but the article.) The problem with the humor-impaired is that they don’t know they’re humor-impaired. Dave Barry mentions this in the referenced article. So of course they will not “get” that they are supposed to think the column is funny.
Here is a good test to see if you are wasting your time on anyone (inspired by Mr. Barry, who in my opinion should get at least several Nobel prizes or something): say the word “weasel” and see if they laugh. Just say, completely at randon, “weasel.” If their facial expression changes at all, there might be hope. If they look at you like you said “Excel spreadsheet” or “overlimit fee,” don’t even bother. Just run away quickly, even if you are forced to leave your own home or office.
In my experience, Humor Impairment Disorder is violently contagious and can often lead to mullet haircuts.
“What can you do with people like this? How do they survive?!”
EVE
I live with it everyday…My sister sent me a 2 page joke sheet about rednecks, and they WERE different from the worn out originals,and I found them hilarious. (This may be due to the fact that I now know the joy that came as an answer to the long-sought after question of “why don’t I understand my community”, but anyway…) I printed them off to share. I gave them to the guy I live with, hoping finally for just a small smile, (not everyone might find them as funny as me), but instead, he reads all 30 of them, looks at me stone-sober and says in a very straight voice, “# 12 is funny”.
I would have laughed again, this time at him, but the way he dismissed my papers to the floor beside him and continued on with his tv show, made me swallow it with an “Ooooookayyyyy then”
(No, you probably haven’t seen these)
You take your dog for a walk and you both use the same tree.
You can entertain yourself for more than an hour with a fly swatter.
You burn your yard rather than mow it.
You think the Nutcracker is something you did off the high dive.
The Salvation Army declines your mattress.
You offer to give someone the shirt off your back and they don’t want it.
You have the local taxidermist on speed dial.
You come back from the dump with more than you took.
You keep a can of Raid on the kitchen table.
Your wife can climb a tree faster than your cat.
You’ve been kicked out of the zoo for heckling the monkeys.
You think a subdivision is part of a math problem.
You’ve bathed with flea and tick soap.
You’ve been involved in a custody fight over a hunting dog.
Your kids take a siphon hose to show and tell.
You think a hot tub is a stolen indoor plumbing fixture.
You took a fishing pole to Sea World.
You go to the stock car races and don’t need a program.
You know how many bales of hay your car will hold.
You have a rag for a gas cap.
Your father executes the “Pull my finger” trick during Christmas dinner.
Your house doesn’t have curtains but your truck does.
You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean.
You can spit without opening your mouth.
You consider your license plate personalized because your father made it.
Your lifetime goal is to own a fireworks stand.
You sit on your roof at Christmas time hoping to fill your deer quota.
You have a complete set of salad bowls and they all say Cool Whip on them.
The biggest city you’ve ever been to is Walmart.
Your working TV sits on top of your non-working TV.
You thought the Unibomber was a wrestler.
You’ve used your ironing board as a buffet table.
You think a quarter horse is that ride in front of K-Mart.
Your neighbors think you’re a detective because a cop always brings you
home
You’ve used a toilet brush as a back scratcher.
You’ve asked the preacher, “How’s they hangin’?”
You missed 5th grade graduation because you had jury duty.
You think fast food is hitting a deer at 65 mph.
What do y’all think? and p.s. How many of you city people are actually laughing at me? LOL It’s okay because I have a sense of humor. :dubious:
Well, I have two Humor-Impaired people I have to deal with at work. One of them is my boss. She’s “mean humor impaired,” the worst kind. I’ll drop by her office, glance to see if she’s not busy, and make some light-hearted wisecrack or tell her something funny that just happened. She’ll look up, stony-faced, and say, “Have you finished editing that June piece on breast cencer yet?” I am learning to just stay under her radar.
The other HIP is an editor here, is is rather sad, as she tries to be agreeable. If you tell her a joke or a humorous incident, she thinks she’s helping if she tries to analyze it: “Screamy chilled corn soup, huh? Yeah, I guess if the corn were alive, it would scream if you chilled it. Ha. Ha.” Sad. really, as she doestry.
Man, I am so glad I don’t know any of these people anymore.
Of course, I am the idiot who can’t get through telling a joke without screwing it up. I do fine in print, but verbally, I’m a doofus. I start telling a joke, get to the punch line, crack myself up, get blank stares and then say something like, “Oh. Did I mention she was holding a spear?”
Call me humor impaired. Misspelled words usually don’t have me on the floor. Pretty much anything you’d circulate on a joke list leaves me disinterested.
otoh, Terry Tate, Office Linebacker? Hysterical. Stories of drunken adventures from college? Very funny, unless it’s the same story over and over, or the same goings on every time.
screamy corn soup? Meh. (Why do you think this is so funny?)
Redneck jokes? Thumbs down. (and/but I’m a Yankee through and through)
My in-laws are all humor-impaired. My MIL and her mother are the kind that have to explain the joke. You know, “Oh look. He’s carrying a green bunny,” when carrying the green bunny was the entire point of the joke and everyone who got the joke didn’t need it explained. My SIL is also the kind that makes mean statements about people’s personal shortcomings and thinks she’s being funny (such as commenting on others’ weight), but can’t take a like-minded “joke” in return.
My husband and I both have a similar sense of humor, and we can laugh for hours about stuff. In fact, it was his sense of humor that I fell in love with first.
Seriously, I used to live in a house where the non-working TV acted as a TV stand. It was the perfect height and everything. Looked kind of weird, though, to have this dead TV staring emptily up at you while you watched the working one.
I thought the other ones were pretty funny, too, morningcoffee - I grew up in Rural America, so I knew a whole lot of people who considered WalMart a city.
Also - Ego: There are redneck Yankees, too. Get thee to northern New England, and there shall ye find them, amidst their rusted Chevys, deer carcasses, and refrigerator-strewn lawns. Verily do I know this, for my formative years were spent in close proximity to such.
LOL they moved to FL. Those that you refer to, I think, are my family from Maine who migrated to FL. The good new is that they took the trucks with them.
