Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 February 2006 14:02:17
I discovered why I say the things I do.
You know how it is - somebody says something other than a direct question and you're called upon to respond and it's polite to do something other than just say "uh-huh". There are many different things you can say in such a situation, so what decides what you say - how do you choose?
I realized that the thing I choose to say is always the first thing that comes to mind that might possibly be funny. As many people will tell you, it is usually not funny, but funny is at least what I'm aiming at. (In an official audit of our department, the only complaint that the auditors could get from our "customers" was that my jokes weren't funny. Unfortunately that didn't make it into the final audit report, but it was one of my proudest moments). Ha - you see - there I'm doing it again. You didn't need to know that stuff about the audit, but I thought it would make you laugh. Might make you laugh. Could conceivably in a different universe make you laugh. Okay, I'm not very good at it, but that's what I'm trying to do.
But why? That's the question. Well, that's the first question. Why do I always want to try and make people laugh? The second question is why do I keep trying when I'm no good at it? Why bother? Why not try and say something profound instead? (Well, okay, that's easy to answer - I'd be even worse at that than at trying to be funny). But why can't I think of something else to say?