Unexpected Humor

 UNEXPECTED HUMOR              

     I never remember the punchlines of jokes. I don’t know the answer to “Knock, knock…” jokesters.

     Humor seems to change with time. Looking back at 1957, oh so long ago in Junior High, the big thrill was going to Webster’s Café for hot, greasy French fries dipped in piles of ketchup and ordering a flavored Coke from the soda fountain. You could order a cherry Coke, lemon Coke, chocolate Coke, or marshmallow Coke.

     All the tastes were lip-smacking-great, but the best was a marshmallow Coke. In the seventh grade, two or three of us at the table quickly stabbed our straws at the same time through the marshmallow topping, and our Cokes exploded all over the table, creating a glorious mess for the waitress to clean up as we laughed hysterically. I think the thrill of it stopped finally when the waitress handed us a stack of napkins and sternly demanded we had to clean up the sticky mess or never come back to the café. Now I can imagine her going to the back of the kitchen and laughing with the cooks about how she’d terrified us into submission. I guess that would be two different sides of humor from our erupting marshmallow Cokes.

     Picture it, 1963, I had taken the Greyhound Bus to Hoboken, New Jersey from Seattle to visit Gramma and Grampa and see the sights. On a Sunday, we went to a Greenwich Village Art Fair, blocks and blocks of paintings, jewelry, and art works. It was a jaw-dropping, glorious sight for me as a West Coast seventeen-year-old. A man with a camera asked me for permission to take my picture with paintings hanging in the background. I, of course, told him yes. Immediately, Gramma gave me a lecture, telling me he was probably going to put my face on someone’s naked body for magazines.  Of course, I thought that was silly. I started to laugh, imagining the photographer selling back-alley posters of my head on a bunch of nudes. I have no idea what he wanted the picture for, or if he used it, but sometimes when Greenwich Village is on tv, I get a little laugh remembering a moment of generation-gap humor.

     In 1974, I was on a three-month road trip through Mexico with a friend. We enjoyed shopping at the markets for souvenirs. I found a bin with switchblade knives, totally illegal in Seattle, but I worked night shifts and thought getting one would help me feel safe. I didn’t want to buy a gun for protection, much too dangerous and scary.

     I picked through the bin, finding a switchblade with a shiny, swanky Mother-of-Pearl handle. I searched around for the magical pushbutton, gave it a press, and the blade flew open faster than Superman “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” The blade almost slit my wrist, it was a right-handed switchblade, and I was a stubborn lefty who teachers couldn’t change.

     After I stopped shaking, I started to laugh. Muggers would be safe; I wasn’t going to the West Side to join the Jets or Sharks with my right-handed switchblade. Laughing was a welcome release from the switchblade shock and surprise, a little humor first aid.

     Then, sometime in my fifties, I was having dinner at Mom’s when she announced, “I wrote a letter to a frozen fish company and let them know their fish sticks taste like deep-fried Kotex. They sent me some coupons.”

     After a long silence, I asked, “Mom, how do you know what deep-fried Kotex tastes like?”

     “Take some coupons and give it a try,” she said. 

     “No thanks” was all I could say.  

     On the way home, I thought about her gourmet description of frozen fish sticks and couldn’t stop an after dinner burst of laughter.

     Even though humor seems to change with the times, perhaps it’s a timeworn truth: When funny moments arise on their own, they can be an enchanting element bringing a needed lesson, part of an unsolved mystery, or a great punchline for a precious memory.

April Ryan of Seattle wrestles with the topic of humor, winning the contest by three "grand amplitude" throws!

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