To be witty is to be smart, to think fast on your feet for the quick comeback, the pun, the play on words. When you step up to the counter at the fill-er-up station with a Big Gulp or a candy bar and the cashier asks “Did you have gas with that?” Respond, “Isn’t that kind of personal?”
When the service attendant asks, “Can I have your phone number?” say, “Don’t you have one of your own?”
When you see a dad pushing a stroller ask, “And other duties as assigned?”
When you see someone pulling weeds in their front yard, an onerous task, melt into comedy. Ask, “You make house calls?”
Approach the driver of the Pest Control truck and ask, “’You do boyfriends?”
Some comedians rely on timing, inflection, and attitude (Seinfeld.) Some comedians– think Rodney Dangerfield, Don Rickles (heckles) –are willing to use the caustic, burning, acidic, the fighting aggressive attack mode, and fear. We resent their kidding at our expense. We hear, “Can’t take a joke?” Will you take a ribbing of mockery, scorn, and ridicule? Stifle the smirk or the chortle that comes at someone else’s expense. Even the physical violence of slapstick movies and the fall-down humor of America’s Funniest Home Videos bring the eruption of laughter at someone else’s expense.
A friendly ribbing is an exchange of a friendly banter of insults. No borders violated, no harm done. Absorbed, but I did not find the gag of ‘shorting the sheets’ one bit funny. Nor did I ever care for the ‘sport,’ the joke of putting salt in the sugar bowl on April Fool’s Day. To be made fun of (ridicule, mock, contempt) was a form of bullying. Derision is not fun when you are the target.
Levity is usually welcome. Eastern Europeans regard Americans as feeble-minded because they smile constantly. ‘Silly’ can be interpreted as making you feel inadequate and stupid, incompetent. Think class clown and bozo, fool and buffoon, although even these have been diagnosed as exerting power to gain attention.
To the walker of 2 dogs, say, “Another and you could have had a three dog night.”
A ‘sense of humor’ means we are able to create and appreciate incongruity and contradiction. Humor pits the coherent, the logical, the normal and the assumed and expected against the illogical and the unexpected. Original clever ideas challenge us with complexity in a preferable way. It’s an oversight to pass up a Scenic Overlook. A yard sale pulls up grass. A ‘Dead End’ sign leads to a cemetery. I waited so long for the traffic light to change at a busy intersection that I applied for a Residency Permit.
Meaning +tension=clash.
I thought the food fight scene in the Animal House movie was stupid, mean and crude. I prefer my interactions genial; warm, soft.
When you’re on your bicycle at the intersection at the stop light ask the Harley dude revving next to you, “Wanna’ drag?”
I once asked at a crematorium, “Shouldn’t your ‘Exit’ sign be pointing up?”
Finally, when someone says they’ll be back shortly, ask “Will you be as tall when you get back shortly?” Dogs smile, cats don’t.
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