I have this seesaw in my head. And everything I’m about to say has to cross the seesaw. To do so it has to answer a question. And the question isn’t: Is this a good idea? or Am I going to upset someone? It’s not: Is this completely idiotic? or even Does this make the slightest bit of sense? The only bar it has to pass to get out my mouth is: More funny or more terrible?
If it’s on the ‘funny’ side of the seesaw it gets said. Generally speaking ‘terrible’ takes care of ‘bad idea’, ‘upset someone’ and some of the time ‘idiotic’. But the rest of ‘idiotic’ and ‘utterly without sense’ lands on the side of funny. And sometimes… well, sometimes the review portion of my brain says: That’s terrible. And mean. And an awful, awful pun and you don’t even like puns. And that’s one of your best friends right there. But the seesaw is already tipping because it’s so funny. And it falls out my mouth while I watch in fascinated horror like it’s a traffic accident in slow motion. And I can only hope the balance of the seesaw is in the right place so that when the moment of appalled silence passes they’ll laugh instead of trying to brain me with a tennis racket, or whatever’s handy.
I think a lot of comedians have their seesaw in the wrong place. Also the people who make cringe humour movies.
But then I start to wonder if maybe for some people the seesaw isn’t between humour and terrible, maybe it’s between smart and dumb or something. Maybe they walk around sounding all intelligent and suave and inside their head they’re making these stupid, awful jokes and desperately trying not to snicker. And then I just want to make every dorky joke I can think of to try to break that self-control.
Show me your goofy side. Let me love you. We can’t be friends until I make you laugh.
Kandace Mavrick
Paul McLaughlan
platform thing 
Wendy White
10/10/2011
My see-saw is: is it obvious or not? I don’t like making comments unless I don’t think the mental process involved has already occurred for the majority in the room.
And I get annoyed with people when they say the most obvious comments, or I can easily predict most of what they’ll say before they say it. Sometimes I take a break from people because I need them to delight me with raw original them-ness and they’ve apparently switched into a read-only mode for a few weeks.
Basically I’m a terrible, high maintenance friend 😛 Fortunately not everyone else realizes this 😛 Also, one thing I love about Karl? He’s exactly the same way. 6 years in and we still surprise each other!
Kandace Mavrick
10/10/2011
Wow. That’s SUCH a good seesaw. There is apparently NOTHING stopping me making utterly bleeding obvious remarks. This has led to such glorious comments as (to my parents on their 25th wedding anniversary) “Wow. You guys have been married longer than I’ve been alive.” Just take a moment to catalogue the various idiocies of that statement.
Generally people don’t find my comments of the dull!obvious variety so much as of the ‘Did you seriously just say that? Allow me to check you for continued brain function’ type. Or at least, this is what I assume they are thinking when they turn to look at me incredulously and then start to laugh.
Wendy White
10/10/2011
See, that comment is fine! I guess because it isn’t the usual sort of comment to make in that situation. Maybe ‘predictable’ rather than ‘obvious’ is closer to what I mean.
I guess I feel like if everyone already knows the script, why are you reading it? Other than for the purposes of ritual.
I get bored with myself if I don’t surprise me, too. It’s also why I love a good run on sentence now and again. The comedy and permutations of thoughts increase in a pleasing way!
Kandace Mavrick
10/10/2011
Mm. I tend to think of run-on sentences as a form of French farce with doors opening and closing and ideas running through one way and people running the other way trying to catch them until everyone runs into each other in the middle and there’s a feather duster on top and no one has any idea what’s going on, or even, by this point, where they started out.
Wendy White
10/10/2011
😀