Tazed and Confused

"I don't know why I feel this way, I don't know if its right or wrong, to laugh at misfortune, darkness can never last too long, when you laugh in its face." Oingo Boingo from "Only Makes Me Laugh"

The nurse had a devilish grin on her plasticine mug when she sauntered in with my dixie cup of joy. I know that I should have just accepted the Looney Tunes smirk without a word, but that cat killing curiosity got the best of me. I said "What's so funny?", she said "Knock, knock." I played along "Who's there?" She then punched me square in the snout, then cackled like the Salem witch that she is. I had no idea why this was so funny.

I've been spending a lot of time ruminating over the finer points of what is funny. Little kids running into closed sliding glass doors, that's funny. Kids shitty their pants in the fertilizer section of Home Depot, slightly ironic, but mostly sick. Witnessing this desperate cry for his mothers attention I was taken aback, and afront for that matter. Not by Little Lord Defecation, no I was awed by the hysterical laughter that this act of self humiliation elicited from his seemingly insane mother. It was like watching Britney Spears and Mommie and Me. I wanted to help the tyke out, but I was out of ammunition and a little tipsy, not a good time to be wielding firearms at the home improvement center. Instead of orphaning the child I did what any quasi-sober person would do, I opted to buy fertilizer later.

People falling down with the ingestion of mass quantities of alcohol is funny. Drunk people crashing through a glass table at the pub, quite possibly the funniest thing in the world this side of Hee-Haw. The drunk in question was an off duty cop, adding one more layer of levity to the whole event. If you can't stand up after consuming the whiskey equivalent of a Big Gulp you shouldn't be in the bar, officer. And the punchline was watching the police that the bartender called dealing with their fallen comrade. You, me, and Richie Sambora would have been arrested on the spot,. but the table dancer of disaster got a ride home. That made me sick.

After being ring side for these two epic displays I still don't know if I have a grasp on what is funny. My two year old nephew is a giggling, laughing basket of happy when I make duck noises, girls at the mall think its creepy. Where's the line? If I hear a tale about a knucklehead having his sack of man-stones hit with a tazer, I'm on the floor with tears pouring down my face, but when I'm the one getting tazed in the basket, well actually, I'm on the floor with tears pouring down my face. Yet somehow its not the same. One way is funny, the other more painful than watching a marathon of the View.

The concept of funny seems to be unique to each person. Some people laugh at Andy Dick, while others just find Andy to be a dick. Some people think that prop comics are a hoot, and these people need to be put to sleep like unwanted pound dogs. Some people think that laughter is the best medicine, but if I have a leg torn off by a thresher please give me morphine and leave Carrot Top in the lobby.

What makes you laugh? What's funny?

Dixie Cup of Love: Fucking Clowns.