Bad Punchline: Christmas Funnies

Kids Say

My nephew Metaeo is three and between his parents, myself, my parents, my grandmother and others he had a enormous pile of brightly-wrapped parcels stacked under the tree and waiting for him that we had put out while he was napping (due to the timing of our celebration). Most kids would have been excited to see all those gifts. My mother reminded me that when I was a child I would have been excited by all of them even if they'd been nothing more than wrapped boxes because tearing off the paper was my favorite part. But after coaxing him to unwrap his first gift we asked him if he'd like to unwrap another one (as he had far more gifts than any of the adults of course) and he said: "No. I don't want to open any more presents!"


The Thought

I had been intending to give my brother and nephew's mother a gift I couldn't really wrap so I had the foresight to get them something I thought they'd enjoy and would allow me to give them a wrapped gift without spending a lot. I gave them their presents at the same time and my nephew's mother laughed when she opened hers and laughed harder when she saw what I'd given my brother. I was a little confused because I know that fantasy-themed coloring books are not typical gifts for adults in their twenties but they both like to color as much or more so than my nephew so I thought they'd enjoy them rather than thinking they were gag gifts. Rather than explain my nephew's mother handed me two presents addressed to me (the smaller of which said from Metaeo on the tag and the larger from herself and my brother). I opened the smaller present and discovered a set of markers. I opened the larger one and found... a coloring book. But not just any coloring book. I found a coloring book that was an identical twin of the one I'd picked out for my brother and what my nephew's mother thought was even funnier was the fact that they'd been debating between that one and the one that I had picked out for her.


Wrappings

My nephew's mother commented on my wrapping job at one point and asked if I couldn't find Christmas paper or if I had chosen to wrap them that way because it was inexpensive. I had to tell her that I actually had a whole roll of snowman paper at home that I'd bought but not bothered to use because I think that Christmas presents should be shiny (to better reflect the colored lights on the tree) and I had found thirty-seven and a half inch tinfoil rolls with which I was able to wrap every present I gave easily.


Special Delivery

When my brother saw one of the gifts I had wrapped but was sending back to my home town with my parents to be given to my soon-to-be-fourteen-year-old cousin he jokingly wondered why I was giving her a pizza box. I was guilty as charged. It was a pizza box. I told him: "So she'll wonder why I gave her a pizza box, of course. And it doesn't look like a pile of books this way." This will be the third year in a row I have given her a pile of books. And it's not because I work in a book store. Not really. It's because... let's put it this way: You shouldn't tell people who love to read that you hate it.


Estimated Time

Estimated time for Golfer's broken-down car to get looked at: Two weeks. Time until Christmas: Two days. Estimated time for Sean's car to break down after Golfer's did: Two days. Estimated delivery time for Chinese food on Christmas: One and a half hours. (Plus the hour it took me to locate a restaurant that was not only open but also willing to deliver on Christmas. In the snow. After six.)

Bad Punchline: Waiting in Line

I realized something the other day and had been waiting impatiently to see one of my coworkers so I could share this observation with her. "I realized something mildly creepy." I started. "You're so hot there's a waiting list to ask you out when you become single again. Two different guys I know have asked to know when you're single again if that happens." True story. Two different male friends of mine have asked to be informed if she becomes single again. Sadly for them she mentioned to me today that she's past the point in her life where she'd be willing to date a non-vegetarian.

Bad Punchline: Three Vegetarians Cook a Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States and anyone else who follows crazy American traditions and happy twenty-fourth of November to everyone else. Between the fact that today is a national holiday where I live (my job is closed and everything) and that I am still banging my head against the fifty thousand word total needed to successfully complete NaNoWriMo and the exceedingly early hour at which this was posted you might be able to tell I wrote this post up in advance. (Over a month in advance, actually.) But also six weeks ahead of schedule I came up with a (hopefully) funny joke for you to enjoy.

Today, for the third year running, my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that my brother, sister-in-law, and myself are vegetarians we believe that family traditions are important. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a giant meal cooking in the kitchen. Not only that but all three of us feel the need to include the standard dishes our families had when we were kids. Even though both our families are from the same state we have very different idea of what Thanksgiving dinners ought to consist of. The first year we not only poisoned my nephew (we hadn't yet learned he was allergic to peanutbutter) but also ended up with enough pie to eat for a month. Last year we had our friend Sean over and I remember very doggedly telling him a story I can't now recall as I tried to ignore my mother throwing up in the living room. This year for non-family members I had a special invitation message: "Bringing food or alcohol is mandatory because we're poor. You may also need to bring a chair. We ask that you kindly leave your age at the door but entertainment should be well-covered because what could be funnier than three vegetarians trying to cook a turkey?"

Bad Punchline: Psychic Vampires

This is a special post for someone who has their birthday today.

I recently read about a experiment where they sent some of the muon flavor of neutrinos from one location to another and they traveled faster than the speed of light. And you know what moving faster than the speed of light means? Time travel! So my first thought was that I'd make some kind of construction out of them in order to delay time for one day for you. But the thing is neutrinos are sub-atomic particles of matter and though they have mass you can't even look at the things without changing them so that kind of made me throw that idea out. I had another science-related idea though that I'd actually thought of earlier. On the basic premise of a Faraday cage (a mesh or cage made out of a conducting material that keeps out electromagnetic radiation and interference) I would make you a Faraday Amulet. The amulet would be for keeping out the malicious electromagnetic impulses (otherwise known as brainwaves) from the evil psychic Vampires that want to prey on your mind while you're at work and drain your energy and psychic lifeforce. Additionally it makes a rather attractive piece of ugly jewelry which I know you like. Unfortunately you can't have it until the next time I see you but I thought you might like this in the meantime.

The Explanation

       I'd like to start this blog off with a little something about me. I admire people who are good at witty comebacks and spontaneous responses. I've always admired people who have this trait. They're a lot of fun to be around and make for good company. These are the kind of people who are the so-called "life of the party". I've always wanted to be one of these people. I don't want to be the "that's what she said" kind of person who attempts to be witty. I want to be the genuinely funny people who can make up a joke or a silly song at a moment's notice. I haven't always been envious of those people but I certainly am now that I realize that it's just not in my genetic make up to be the funny guy who tells jokes. But I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter that I can't crack jokes or spout off a whole set of new lyrics for a common silly tune or any number of things that can get an entire room laughing. Not even slightly bitter.
       After all, why should I be bitter when I like to think I can tell stories? Being able to tell a good story is a good party quality as well, right? You end up reaching a smaller audience, certainly, but in general your audience can be just as satisfied as the audience of the funny guy. And that is the truth. Or, at least, that's what I tell myself. This may not necessarily be true and I make no guarantees so don't try this at home. It could end up severely injuring your self-esteem, bruising your pride, deflating your ego and generally decreasing your social status and self-view. I avoid finding this out by not actually telling any stories in real life. I mostly just repeat comic punchlines and things that I have read because my head is a vast receptacle for useless information. Please do not explain to me that telling stories is a terrible idea. I do not want to know. Kindly leave me to my delusions.
       Speaking of delusions, I seem to have digressed back from my tangent to my original line of thought. I can logically conclude that I will never be one of those spontaneous funny people. Logic does not stop me from deluding myself into thinking that I can convince people that I am one of those funny guys without actually being spontaneous. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this and the solution I came up with to the problem of pretending to be spontaneous and funny is by thinking up comebacks in advance. I usually refer to these in my own mind as advance-comebacks, which is a terribly clever and witty name for them but just as appropriate would be the term "punchline" because I have to write the rest of the joke as well.
       I sit around and think of arbitrary situations that have the possibility of actually coming up in real life. For example I will give you a response to a situation that actually has come up and I actually have used. In a situation where someone asks me what religion I prescribe to (though maybe not in those precise words but something along that vein) I have come up with a good response. The situation goes a bit like this:
People are talking in a room. The conversation turns to religion. Someone asks me what religious view I have.
       I respond: "I'm either agnostic or a pantheist, depending on how you look at it."
       This response is entirely true. I am a logical, scientific person. I like proof of things. There is some evidence in the universe to suggest that there is something out there beyond human comprehension. It could be some kind of God. It could be multiple gods. It could be that everything in the world has it's own unique spirit. It could be that the world is a complex ant farm in the alien equivalent of a science fair and we just don't know it because the aliens are as much beyond our comprehension as we are beyond the comprehension of a hive of ants. I believe that there is something. And I believe there are a set of basic morals that we all, as human beings, should probably all follow.  This is the basic premise of being agnostic. You believe in some kind of higher power but don't necessarily believe in god. I do. And since I believe this I can easily believe in the basic premise behind any and all moral religions and claim that I am pantheistic. As a pantheist I believe in all religion. I don't necessarily believe in every aspect of each and every religion but I believe that it's plausible that any one of them could be the truth. And thus is my response formulated.
       But despite the fact that this response is very much like the kind of thing that the funny, spontaneous people I know would say, it's not actually funny. I had previously assumed that I could get away with not actually being terribly funny if I pinned down the witty side of the equation. After managing to try several of my advance-comebacks on various people I slowly reached the conclusion that my wit is too intelligent. Very few people quickly grasp the concept of pantheism and agnosticism being one and the same even after my explaining it to them. Most people don't even bother to ask what I mean. I do, usually, get a lot of puzzled expressions to which I often explain. But, as Scott Adams would say: "It's Not Funny If I Have to Explain It." Neither is it witty if I have to explain it, sadly enough.
       I realize that I am neither witty nor funny and there is a distinct possibility (which I deliberately persist in not testing) that I also cannot tell good stories. Yet I still can't help but continue to come up with the punchlines to bad jokes for situations that rarely if ever come up. I could say, in fact, that my life is a series of bad punchlines.