Funny Ha-Ha v. Funny Please Stop
Wherein you will pay for the whole seat, but shall be surprised to find that, in reality, you need only the edge. Or, perhaps you will follow others' lead and leave before intermission.
The other day I was emailing back and forth with my friend Brian, and I implored him to check out the Mimi Smartypants post where she amused herself by saying, “Ooh, a bloodfeast! How nice!” in a grandma voice, much to the non-amusement of her husband, who was trying to go to sleep. I laughed out loud when I read it, and then I laughed out loud again when I remembered it and told Brian about it, and I am laughing out loud about it right now while I write this. Brian and I were discussing how the best kind of cracking up is the kind that you inflict upon yourself and yourself only, because it never ceases to be amusing, and somehow becomes exponentially more amusing the less others find it so. I remember how, a few months ago, I could not stop saying BARELY LEGAL GRANNIES in a voice typically reserved for announcements of the SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! ONE NIGHT ONLY! variety, and this absolutely killed me every single time. Everyone else I knew, not so much.
My roommate’s boyfriend Rob and I have identified each other as fellow one-audience-ers, and since it’s been established that we amuse no one else as much as we amuse ourselves, we’ll often recite our best lines of the day to each other at night, celebrated with high-fives of approval. Kind of like, hey, awesome job with that orgasm you had while masturbating! Thanks man, you too!
One thing I find amusing is that a lot of you people here on the internet seem to think I’m pretty funny, which is nice, but you also seem to be laboring under the pretense that other people I know in real life think I’m funny, which is not always the case. If you asked my friends to tell you the funniest thing I’ve ever said to them, I’m fairly certain all of them would tell you about a time when I said something I thought was so funny that they just ended up laughing at me. In fact, I think that most people I know and interact with in real life think that perhaps the first thing I say is funny, but then I say ten more things in a similar vein and they’re rolling their eyes, but I’ve just gotten started amusing myself at that point. I think most people will back me up on this, especially my brother, my mother, and anyone I have ever dated. Especially Joey. Poor Joey has endured about nine thousand one-sided conversations where I say something that we both laugh at, and then I start riffing on that thing I’ve just said, and eventually I’m the only one laughing, and I have to hold the phone away to catch my breath because I’ve cracked myself up so much, and he’s like, “Okay, well, I have to go now!”
Something about Joey really brings out the relentless in me, maybe because he’s nice and always laughs, just like how my brother brings it out in me because he rarely cracks a smile and probably isn’t even listening, so I keep going because what have I got to lose? I feel bad about it sometimes with Joey, because ours is really not standard former boyfriend/girlfriend interaction; it’s more like big brother/little brother, with my part being the verbal equivalent of slapping someone with their own hand and asking why they keep hitting themselves. Like the other night, when he called me to say hi and I asked him if he had hot Saturday night plans with his new lady, and he said yes, as a matter of fact, she was going to cook them Kenyan food. This rapidly disintegrated into me informing him that she was probably whipping up some baby in a nice jackal sauce, because that’s a rare Kenyan delicacy, but then I couldn’t go any farther with the conversation because I couldn’t stop get past how hilarious it was to say “baby in a nice jackal sauce.” I think he got off the phone, and I sincerely hope he enjoyed the meal. Maybe he lucked out and she prepared him a bloodfeast.