Last week, on two occasions, Leigh-Anne and I got the opportunity to make jokes that only the other got to hear. They were pretty funny at the time, and it seemed a waste that only one person got to hear them.
Leigh-Anne was discussing one of GWB’s recent speeches, and remarking that all the people at work were saying that the speech was “congenial and easy to understand,” and how that seemed to be the most noteworthy thing about it. Thinking back to an old episode of South Park, I said, “Let me guess: His entire speech consisted of, ‘Me President, bachomp, bachooeychomp, bachooeychooeychomp?’” SHe seemed to think that this was hysterical. At least that’s what I inferred from the spasms of laughter.
Saturday night, we were watching TV, and came across a station showing the gawdawful Kurt Russell sci-fi film, Soldier. In the scene we happened upon, Russell is trudging through your garden-variety postapocalpytic landscape. All around him, stuck in the ground, are crosses made of hastily-tied-together pieces of scrap wood and metal. After about a second, Leigh-Anne said, “Oh, look, it’s the Blair Witch Graveyard!” It struck me at just the right time to be hysterically funny.
Now, if THAT isn’t mundane and pointless, I don’t know what is.
Phil, you just brought back the memory of Soldier. I thought I had buried it deep enough in the far, far canyons of my brain. But now it’s back. Thanks. UGH.
"I’m gonna kill’em all, Sir."
Some years back, we paused during channel surfing on an old B&W version of “A Christmas Carol” - a very dramatic scene when Scrooge is on his knees by his bed, obviously very emotional about the visit of one of the spirits. I had to say, “I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do I do I do…” - then we both pretty much lost it.
This past weekend, I took my daughter to see her high school drama production of “Phantom” - sadly it wasn’t even up to high school drama standards. However, in the (I suppose) dramatic scene right after the fired opera house manager reveals to the phantom the truth of his paternity, I leaned to my daughter and said, menacingly, “Erik, I am your father…” We did manage to stifle our giggles.
Shame on me… 
But one a friend told me about.
He was giving his old computer to his parents (at the time in their 60s), as he had gotten a newer one. He realized that they would probably need an upgrade on their hard drive, so he told them that if they ever started running low on space, he would be happy to come over and install a hard drive bigger than their existing 30 MB drive (hey, this was 15 years ago).
His parents were in the kitchen when he was telling them that, and he was getting all the connections fitted together. Then, his father leaned over to his mother and whispered something–at which point, his mother started loudly giggling.
He asked his Dad later what he had told her, and he replied, “Well you were talking about installing a hard drive, and I was just reminding her of some of the hard drives I had installed over the years.”
This was a college roommate rather than a SO or spouse, but the same thing in that only he got to hear it.
We’re in church on Sunday morning and that particular Sunday we had a professional opera singer visiting (he was someone’s relative). So he gave a 15-minute performance of sacred works that was just beautiful, enough to bring a tear to your eye.
In that brief, quiet period that always follows a performance, before everyone shifts in their seats and coughs and breaks the stillness, I leaned over and whispered in my roomates’ ear: “Not bad, for a harelip”.
Funny because it was just tasteless (no, he didn’t really have a harelip), and even funnier because we were in church and just couldn’t laugh. We spent the entire rest of the service shaking in silent laughter, afraid to even look at each other.
Lancaster, CA is in the extreme western part of the Mojave Desert known as Antelope Valley. While driving down a 2-lane desert road (Avenue G at about 30th St. West) we spied an abandoned couch by the side of the road. I pointed to it and said, “Rest area.”
Another time, we saw CalTrans workers (or people performing Community Service, anyway) bending over and putting trash into large orange trash bags. I pointed and said, “Skydiving accident.”