A few of my coworkers (in adjacent, open semi-cubicles) were talking about how over-the-top the media has been in covering Anna Nicole Smith–her death and all that has come after.
Yippee, I think, the perfect opportunity to show off my latest most favoritest Onion story:
I was 10 or 11, eating dinner with a friend and her family. They were talking about baseball and mentioned Lou Gehrig. I remarked upon the coincidence of him acquiring Lou Gehrig’s disease - of all people! The entire table turned to me, exasperated, and tried to explain the connection to my wee little brain. Sigh.
I was up at the Pub one afternoon with a friend of mine.
Playing on the TV was “The Shining”
In one particular scene The kid gets up on Jack Nicholson’s lap and says something to the effect of: “Daddy, you wouldn’t ever hurt me or Mommy would you?” Jack then responded with his signature raised eyebrow look and said: “Nnnooo, of course not. I could Nnnnever hurt you or Mommy”
Me and my friend were giggling like a couple of school boys. Everybody else at the bar looked at us like we were sociopaths.
It seems like this kind of stuff happens to me on a weekly basis but for some reason my mind is drawing a blank for more examples.
I would probably have a great deal more friends if I wasn’t so “humorous.”
A high school teacher was once talking about how his wife was teased about her weight as a girl. Being named Mary Isabelle meant that all the kids referred to her as “Mary Is A Whale.” I remember the rather stony silence that surrounded my friend and myself when we laughed at the story.
Who did the New York Post & Daily News have on their covers the day after the 2000 election. Was it Bush? Nooooooooooooo. Was it Gore? Noooooooooooooo.
It was Hilary! I laughed so hard at that someone asked me if I was okay. I was literary shaking and gasping for breath.
The only other person who saw the humor in it was my sister. It must be a genetic thing.
I have developed a sort of veneer around my humor, since people rarely realize how sarcastic & cynical I can be at times. I thought the Onion article was hilarious, for example. I can’t think of any examples off-hand though. But usually I’ll say whatever it is and people look at me and say “Mika!” in such a shocked voice.
Whoo, boy. Story of my life. But then, to achieve greatness one must also fail many times.
My most memorable one happened in the lunchroom at work. Remember some years ago when a bunch of high school football players laid down in the middle of the street in imitation of some movie? Inevitably, one of them was horribly injured or killed.
Around the lunch table was overheard, “So a bunch of morons lay down in the street and get killed. Where’s the problem?”
Every head turned toward me, not one of them smiling. Maybe I deserved it.
There’s a Leslie Nielson movie where he discusses a dog with the dog’s owner.
“Your dog has a very surprised look on his face.”
“That’s his butt.”
“Oh. Then he’s not going to enjoy that treat I just fed him.”
I told this to my extended family at the dinner table. The reactions were almost universally “That’s gross!” Except my teenaged niece. She was laughing so hard she almost passed out.
The other day I commented that the computer system was “going down like a Granny on a frosty morning”. I don’t think it was appreciated by the entire office.
Still, I do generally get less shocked looks than a colleague who commented of a certain football player (soccer)… “He’s got the first touch of a rapist”. Even I paused on that one… for about 10 seconds before I couldn’t help laughing.
The instructor of the hi-lo aerobics class brought in a new CD. In the middle of the routine, the music segued into “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again”. The lyric, “First you step to the left,” was in perfect choreography with the instructor’s cue to “step left”. I had a strong mental picture of the footprints and the dashed lines in the floor from the movie.
I started laughing so hard that I was afraid of disrupting the class, so I discretely left the room. After the class was over, I went back in and apologized to the instructor. The class had about a dozen people in it and only one knew what I was talking about when I explained it.
I tended to use a lot of “Honeymooners” quotes sprinkled in my “humor”. Since that show was a staple around these parts I’d say 98% of the people in my cirlces understand the references. Oh, but those 2-percenters.
One was a girl that I was dating and really liked. One night a bunch of us were out having drinks when I used one of the Honeymooners references. All laughed except for her. I followed it up with a second one “Don’t -cha get it? Knight on a dog?”
She silently steamed and later tore into me because she thought I was implying she was dumb and “didn’t get” my jokes.
I explained to her where the references were from but she had already made up her mind that I had insulted her. We didn’t last long after that.
It was my way of going in the other direction on that issue. Everyone seemed to be sympathetic to the injured people and bemoaning how horrible the situation was. I was pointing out that they had helped us “cull the heard”.
I was an engineering major in college. To graduate, we had to take some “socio-humanistic” electives. One of the ones I took was on robot/android themed literature and movies.
So we were discussing the movie “Blade Runner” in class. The instructor was talking about how human the androids were made to seem, which prompted me to say:
“Well, until Zhoragets shot and starts skittering around on the floor like a wet hamster in hot grease!”
About 30 horrified faces looking at me, and one girl nearly pissing herself trying not to laugh.
An all-time favorite film of mine - but when Zora is crashing through the glass, it is VERY obvious when they have switched to a stunt-person (maybe even a guy) in Zora drag to do the crashing…
Back on topic - the line about the hamster was funny.
Just this weekend, we were discussing inappropriate humor around the table at a work-related event. I cited one of my favorite lines where a comedian is ‘complimenting’ another comedian and says "that’s what is so brilliant: his observational humor that everyone in the audience can relate to. Like, remember his line: ‘you know when you get nervous and strangle the hooker?’ "
a few folks laughed, but were checking either other to see if it was okay…I definitely was pushing it…
I’m pretty much the only one I know who thinks it hilarious that Bill Clinton, in one of his State of the Union addresses, twice tried to take pride in the fact that he had “made America’s communities more livable”, but instead, said liberal. For such a slick talker a gaffe was hilarious: however, most people thought that he said that on purpose (but why?)
:rolleyes: :mad:
