Jacknifed Juggernaut, I know this feeling exactly. I was once at an out-of-town meeting with people like, oh, my boss’s boss, and other people I mostly talked to on the phone from other offices. A subject came up, and I had a joke for it! This was very unusual as I’m the kind of person who only ever remembers one joke at a time and it’s usually not a very good one. This joke was no exception, except that it fit the circumstances and conversation so perfectly. So I shared it with the guy on my left.
He immediately shared it with the whole table, in a nice appropriately booming voice and then, at the end of it, said in a very low voice, “actually, that was Suzanne’s joke.” As everybody was laughing, of course.
So who got points for the great wit, hmmm?
Of course it wasn’t like I invented the joke or anything. I wanted credit for the timing.
Oh, wait, was I supposed to actually tell the joke in this thread? Sorry, I’ve forgotten it. It’s no longer the one joke I remember, I’ve got another one. Anyway you had to be there.
I would have shared it with the whole table but I just don’t speak that loudly.
Yeah, it can get pretty dicey. I ran into my boss, Jack, at LAX one time and said, loudly, “Hi Jack.” Then realized what I had just said and I sort of shrank into my seat waiting for airport security to come and get me.
I remember something fun happening along those lines at my sister’s college graduation party. We were all hanging out, and this nerdy older guy was kinda hitting on her, and he told her this funny anecdote that had happened to him when he was in college.
Now, I was a nerdy kid. The kind that read Campus Comedy in my gramma’s Reader’s Digest when we visited her. So I knew where he’d gotten this funny anecdote from.
I wish I’d said something, ruined his nerdgroove. But I was too shy.
I was in the audience of a small club once to see an artist who was something of a folksinger, but more original than that implies. When he sat down with his acoustic guitar, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing Kum By Ya.” Everybody laughed.
After the show was over, he came out for an encore and said, “Does anyone have any requests?” I said, to my table mates, “I’m gonna request Kum By Ya.” One of them goes, “Count of three, all of us shout KUM BY YA!”
I’m thinking, how lame is that? All shout it out? So they did, and I didn’t. I felt like it woulda been funnier if I had just requested it, like a real request, rather than some lame unison shout out.
Eh. Happens all the time. It doesn’t bother me at all. I tend to enounce my zingers somewhat quietly, or privately - the only time the whole group is going to hear it is if the group is comprised of three or four people at the same table/in the same room, etc. If someone wants to take what I said and run with it, more power to them. It’s not my style to shout it out, and so I would never have gotten credit for it in the first place, right? I know the truth, if it was my joke, and I’m often just pleased to see other people enjoying it. Penis ensues.
Though in lissener’s case, I think his delivery would have been far more humourous than the united chant. Myself, I wouldn’t have been annoyed as much as embarrassed for them, though only briefly, as I would be for anybody that delivered it in such a cringe-worthy fashion. Like lissener, I wouldn’t have taken part in it, either. You’re on your own, there, kids.
