Five things that made me smile...
Dec. 17th, 2008 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenatagged by cawriter
Well, I've already shared several of them:
* getting some work already!
* those adorable Disney Xmas Cards. I just can't help myself. Also, old time photographs of things like 60s office parties (also posted) and 40s call centers. Those were the days when one could smoke at work. There wasn't an obesity epidemic, but we all died of heart attacks anyway. Note: the library of congress has a marvelous pictorial archive for looking at lots of things.
* My brother told an absolutely absurd version of the 'boo-meringue' joke.
[Q: What do you get when you cross a ghost with a pie? A: A Boo-Meringue.]
He told it this way:
Q: Why shouldn't you cross a ghost with a pie? A: It might boomerang on you.
For some reason the joke variation was hilarious to me. I know there's no accounting for taste, but what might make you laugh is the following story:
When my brother was a cub scout he had a subscription to Boys Life magazine. At the back of the magazine was a page of these kind of terrible groaners, which he would insist on reading aloud repeatedly. Puns seem to be a stage of development/language acquisition, which is one of the reasons 7-10 year olds seem to adore them so much. However, I got the impression he loved terrible jokes.
There are only so many ways of telling a person you love them, and sometimes it's not comfortable for siblings to express affection. So I invented various other forms of affection, including head-butting, something called a 'penguin hug', which involves waddling up to the 'huggee' and batting your arms around them (like a penguin) without actually touching them, and, of course, telling these horrible jokes.
When he was in college, rarely home, and struggling with depression, I used to read the Mini Page 'Mighty Funny's to his answering machine. I didn't have anything to say to him, I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him. Somehow I believed he still loved these jokes because he would also send them to me.
Then one day, when I was telling someone about how much he loves 'Mighty Funny' puns in his company, he told me he didn't love the jokes, that he'd always sent them to me because he knew how much I loved them. It was a sort of punny version of Gift of the Magi. Neither of us cared for puns, but collected them for the other person as a token of affection.
Somehow, this has made them even better. These jokes that I once collected out of concern and affection for my brother have 'boomeringued' into something else: a reminder of how much he cares for me. So the exchange continues, and we occasionally even have a hand in creating the jokes. (The boomeringue joke is one of my own invention... sparked by my mothers terrible cooking.) My brother has a real facility for puns, often coming up with better and multiple punch lines than the joke intends. They have become, in fact, one of the great joys of my life, and always lift my spirits.
* I'm reading Lloyd Alexander's last book, which has funny bits, but is mostly an act of remembering how much I love to read and how much reading has sustained me all my life.
*frostmorn's Xmas CD, which gave me the first inkling of holiday spirit.
* Oh yes, and this.
cawriterWell, I've already shared several of them:
* getting some work already!
* those adorable Disney Xmas Cards. I just can't help myself. Also, old time photographs of things like 60s office parties (also posted) and 40s call centers. Those were the days when one could smoke at work. There wasn't an obesity epidemic, but we all died of heart attacks anyway. Note: the library of congress has a marvelous pictorial archive for looking at lots of things.
* My brother told an absolutely absurd version of the 'boo-meringue' joke.
[Q: What do you get when you cross a ghost with a pie? A: A Boo-Meringue.]
He told it this way:
Q: Why shouldn't you cross a ghost with a pie? A: It might boomerang on you.
For some reason the joke variation was hilarious to me. I know there's no accounting for taste, but what might make you laugh is the following story:
When my brother was a cub scout he had a subscription to Boys Life magazine. At the back of the magazine was a page of these kind of terrible groaners, which he would insist on reading aloud repeatedly. Puns seem to be a stage of development/language acquisition, which is one of the reasons 7-10 year olds seem to adore them so much. However, I got the impression he loved terrible jokes.
There are only so many ways of telling a person you love them, and sometimes it's not comfortable for siblings to express affection. So I invented various other forms of affection, including head-butting, something called a 'penguin hug', which involves waddling up to the 'huggee' and batting your arms around them (like a penguin) without actually touching them, and, of course, telling these horrible jokes.
When he was in college, rarely home, and struggling with depression, I used to read the Mini Page 'Mighty Funny's to his answering machine. I didn't have anything to say to him, I just wanted him to know I was thinking about him. Somehow I believed he still loved these jokes because he would also send them to me.
Then one day, when I was telling someone about how much he loves 'Mighty Funny' puns in his company, he told me he didn't love the jokes, that he'd always sent them to me because he knew how much I loved them. It was a sort of punny version of Gift of the Magi. Neither of us cared for puns, but collected them for the other person as a token of affection.
Somehow, this has made them even better. These jokes that I once collected out of concern and affection for my brother have 'boomeringued' into something else: a reminder of how much he cares for me. So the exchange continues, and we occasionally even have a hand in creating the jokes. (The boomeringue joke is one of my own invention... sparked by my mothers terrible cooking.) My brother has a real facility for puns, often coming up with better and multiple punch lines than the joke intends. They have become, in fact, one of the great joys of my life, and always lift my spirits.
* I'm reading Lloyd Alexander's last book, which has funny bits, but is mostly an act of remembering how much I love to read and how much reading has sustained me all my life.
*
frostmorn's Xmas CD, which gave me the first inkling of holiday spirit.* Oh yes, and this.
