Funny

Ron is one of those people who can hear a joke once and it instantly becomes part of his encyclopedic repertoire. I am a good audience. He is such a great raconteur that he can tell me the same joke three times without me realizing I have heard it before until he gets to the punch line!

He once told me a list of his favorite oxymorons.
A funny German was near the top of the list.
That would be me. I am the first person born in America in a well-documented family tree deeply rooted in the Bavarian Alps.

As I read through my blog, something was missing.
I couldn’t live with only the elegance of the written word. What is life without humor? I felt compelled to add some of my cartoons. Perhaps my vanity, or maybe my insecurity, wants you to know, “Yes. he does that, too!”

Some of my friends got this a long time ago and yet, with occasional intermissions, they are still here. I guess that’s why you call them friends. Despite the glaring warts on my personality, they politely look the other way and say, “Shall I go buy some more wine?”

Sometimes I forget to honor them with the same friendliness. We simmer in pride and blame for a month or two and then the phone rings and we’re back to the good ol’ days. Pals.

Inherently, I am very loyal. Very judgemental but very loyal. I understood the priciple of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” instictively since I was a child. I would look at a person and size them up. Our future was decided in a nano-second.

Sometimes I would think better of my instant judgement, which would only delay the moment when I would pay. I would hear the voice of reason in my kids’ school teachers. “We are all equal and must not only accept everyone but we will like them as well.” What a crock!

This is the Great Grey Insipid Democracy that turns us into those cute little monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil – and renders us another molecule in the Great Grey Insipid  Sea we call a tolerant and advanced society.

Garbage like that tickles my funny bone. No really. I have one. Like any good German. Just ask me. I am my best audience. A David Sedaris I’m not, but I’ll think of something while you open another bottle of wine. You’ll see.

“It’s just when you try to be funny

that I have a hard time laughing.”