My daughter says that I have a quirk when it comes to jokes. She doesn’t exactly say it’s an annoying quirk, but secretly, I think she believes it is.
Her contention is that if I tell a joke and no one laughs, instead of giving up on the joke, I keep telling it over and over to everyone I meet, even though no one ever laughs.
She’s right. But here’s my problem. If I find a joke funny, I come to believe in that joke, and like any good preacher, I want to bring others into the sunshine that warms my face. My jokes are my higher power and I am a humour evangelist.
When I was in university 45 years ago, I hung around with a very funny guy. He had a bunch of one liners always at the ready and he would whip them out when he wanted to make someone laugh.
And laugh they always did.
Here is my favourite quip of his.
When anyone would ask him how he was doing, he would say to them, “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment.” Now, the reason I found this so funny, and others did too, was the fact that he was standing there, perfectly healthy, explaining that he was just barely alive.
So, for 45 years, I have used this joke. Over and over and over. When a stranger, often a clerk in a store, asks me how I am, I tell them, “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment.” In 45 years, I have had a total of probably three people laugh at my reply and two of those were out of kindness or possibly even pity. Maybe it’s my delivery or maybe I live in the wrong part of the world.
But I do know one thing.
I am going to keep using this line till the day it comes true. The nurse will ask, “Well, how are we today, Mr. Hagarty?” And I will say, “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment.”
And she won’t laugh. Instead, she will fluff up my pillow and hand me my pea soup. I will sit up and try to swallow a little nourishment. And whatever might be left of my pride by then.
©2016 Jim Hagarty
