I'm The Joke

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.

Dame Edna Everage
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I have a problem. My problem is a sense of humor. I have a fondness for the absurdities, ironies, bewilderments, perplexities and paradoxes of life. I find them amusing. It is funny when those things affect other people. I laugh with them if they laugh. But I am particularly amused when it's my feet that are stuck to the fly paper or I'm the one who bumps his head.

So what's the problem? The problem is that when I describe the things about my life that I think are amusing many people don't see it that way. I guess they think I'm complaining and feeling sorry for myself. Or even worse some people will ascribe to me a dire condition that must be dealt with somehow. Everything has an amusing side of you just look for it

Last night I was talking to a friend who reminded me of that Thanksgiving when my stove and oven weren't working and how I bought some canned food to eat and my can opener decided to break down before I got the first can opened. It was a peanut butter and jelly Thanksgiving. If one can't see the humor in that one is lost.

If I can't remember names so what. I have a lot of things in my brain to remember. It does not mean I am losing my mind. It amuses me.

It is difficult and painful for me to walk. I stagger. I am not falling down, coming apart and ready for a wheel chair. I stagger, that's all. I went to meet two friends in Philadelphia one afternoon. One of them was a few years older than I. We had to walk a long block to a bus stop and we both staggered. The other person looked at us a said how awful it was that we were both staggering. I said that we weren't staggering, we were just warming up for our tap dance number. My staggering friend laughed out loud. The other person didn't think it was that funny.

There isn't any experience in life that doesn't deserve to have it's funny side. I was in a production of "Arsenic And Old Lace" at a theatre in Florida. The comedy, if you don't know it, is about two charming old ladies who benevolently poison all the lonely old man who come to live with them in order to put them out of their misery. It's very funny.

We did 40 performances of it and many of them were in the afternoon. We would frequently have church groups who were bussed in to enjoy the show. But one afternoon, in the middle of the first act, a large group got up and walked out. As they were leaving to get back on their bus the house manager asked them what was wrong. They said they couldn't stay because the play was about "serial killers." Heaven help those pious people and grant them each a sense of humor.

I can get to laughing when I think back to some of the silly things I have done in my life and some of the amusing predicaments I have been in. Now I find there are many comical things about being a senior and I'm enjoying every one of them.

If you catch me trying to find my slippers in the morning go ahead and laugh. I don't mind.

Dana
The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 6 responses so far

I await your answer.
DB
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