On Humor

Humor is funny. I don't mean funny "ha ha" because of course it is. I mean funny in that you can't define it or engage in it using a formula. If you like your neighbor's spaghetti sauce you can always ask, "How did you make that?" and you will shortly be able to duplicate the recipe. Unless of course when you eat it you say, "This tastes funny". Not so with humor.

Of course people have analyzed humor to determine what's funny and what's not or what makes people laugh - which of course is a different thing altogether. (Note the many times you have told someone, "That's funny" and didn't laugh.)

The problem with trying to determine what makes people laugh is that someone will try to learn how to be funny. I can't think of anything less humorous than someone who is not funny trying to make people laugh. Or figuring out how to make them laugh. The least offensive form of this is to buy a joke book. Puhlease.

Now I must admit that one of the most hysterical moments I have ever had in my life - and people who know me also know that I have had countless numbers of them - was listening to someone trying to tell a joke and failing miserably. The incident took place at Rehoboth Beach one summer many years ago. The attempting teller (can you really put those two words together) just couldn't get it right. And with each successive attempt he got funnier exponentially. (By the way never use exponentially in a joke. It tends to kill the punch line.) By the time we begged, literally begged, him to stop , we were all holding our stomachs with tears coming out of our eyes (where else would they come from) and were close to needing oxygen to breathe.

Of course the joke teller (he could now qualify to be in that class) had no idea why we were laughing which of course caused several more blood vessels in our eyes to burst.

To this day I cannot remember the joke. Or the punch line. Or even the name of the person telling it.

All I remember is laughing.

Humor is funny.