Things That Always Make Me Laugh

     There are a few things that will always make me laugh.  If I'm having a dreary day, I just look out the window and think of one of these things, and I start laughing.  The dreariness fades.
      
     Mary says "Bye Ceilings!"  Every time I think about this, I just crack up.  It was so simple, but so hilarious.  I had found a craigslist ad for an apartment that seemed pretty damn ridiculous.  In it was the typo "hi ceilings."  We made fun of this.  Then it came to the part with a series of questions.  One of them was "Do you make 40x the rent?"  To which Mary just replied "Nope!  Bye Ceilings!"
    I laughed uncontrollably that day.  I had to leave the room.  Now, when I come across an apartment I can't afford, I wave and say "bye ceilings!"

     Wearing Someone Else's Face  What's the ultimate in creepiness?  Wearing someone else's face.  In the sketch class I took a few months ago, this came up a lot.  And every time it did, I cracked up.  We'd be spit balling on how to take the joke to the next level and someone, usually the same girl, would offer up "she could be wearing his face."  Logistically, I'm not sure how it works.  But comically, it gets me every time. 

     Drinking a Gallon of Milk in an Hour  The hilarity of this caught me off guard, actually.  A group of people were hanging out in a bar- a mixture of people who knew each other and people who were just meeting.  A new acquaintance was trying to tell a story of traveling through Ireland; he and his buddy had given themselves the challenge of drinking a gallon of Guinness in a day.  My friend Megan and I looked at each other with a familiar twinkle in our eyes.  "Easy" we chimed.  There are only 8 pints in a gallon.  (This actually took us a bit to figure out, because we had been drinking.)  You could drink a gallon of Guinness during the workday and probably not even be that drunk.  We dismissed his supposed prowess.
      Then Katie chimed in with "Oh, my friends never tried that with Guinness.  They used to try to see if they could drink a gallon of milk in an hour."  I lost it.  I laughed wholeheartedly for a sold three minutes.  She was completely serious.  But it can't be done.  It is physically impossible.  The idea of people trying just gets to me.  I also kind of thing of that episode of Friends when Joey claims he can drink a gallon of milk in  under a minute and ends up dumping it all over himself.
     Katie admitted nobody was ever able to do it, and every time they tried, they would get very ill.  But they kept trying.
     It may have just been the nonchalant way Katie brought it up, but something about trying to drink a gallon of milk in an hour makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Ahh.  Good times.  

I Almost Fell Off the Escalator

Allow me to paint a picture:  Friday is Mary's bagel day.  She loves bagel day, and rightfully so- bagels are awesome.  Mary and I chat frequently, and the topic of our respective lunches comes up often.  Friday afternoon, we had this conversation:

Mary: I'm starving.

  Do I bring a bagel home for lunch?

me: sure!

  that sounds great

Mary: Do I put cream cheese on it? Or make a tuna sandwich with it?

me: ooh. tuna!

Mary: K. It shall be done.

me: awesome

Mary: Do you think cream cheese with tuna on it would work at all?

  The way one would put salmon or whitefish on bagels?

me: yeah, that could be good

Mary: Maybe I'll do that... 

To my delight, Mary reads Oliver daily and she was very aware of my email troubles with my mother.  Based on these two things, I received the following email Friday afternoon:

Dear Nancy,

I'm writing to inform you that tuna and cream cheese do not, in fact, go together as was previously suspected. In fact, they make a terrible mix and I highly recommend you avoid eating them in combination.

Hope your family is well.

Sincerely,

Mary H. Alongi

I read it from my phone while traveling on a descending escalator.  I started laughing so hard I nearly tumbled down the escalator.  I would assume fellow Metro passengers thought I was crazy but that feeling is usually mutual anyway.
     There are several points that can be taken from Mary's email.  One of the most obvious may be "Nancy, maybe you're harshing a little too much about your mother's emailing technique."  Sure, maybe.  Because it would have made sense for Mary to write an email in the style of my mother to get the tuna/cream cheese information across.  However, it would not have made me almost fall of an escalator, and where would we be without that gem of a moment.  Also, as follow up, below is the email correspondence between my mother and me from this morning.

From: Nancy Melchert <nancy.melchert@gmail.com>

To: Debra Melchert <debmelchert@yahoo.com>
Sent: Mon, April 18, 2011 9:26:45 AM
Subject: Re:
?? :(     

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Debra Melchert <debmelchert@yahoo.com> wrote:

snowing here.  1-3 inches expected.  snow brush in the garage

 I ask again, please, can we teach my mother to use email?

P.S.  I feel it should also be mentioned that if I give her an inch, she'll take a mile.  I was expecting another under 140 character oddly punctuated response, and she did not disappoint.  I think she's not fully aware of the reply button, and I received this new email just moments ago: 

heard if you take a travel mug to Starbucks they will fill it with coffee for free - this week only.  is that by you too ?

 I would like to offer the same response: ?? :(     

When Worlds Collide

     Worlds colliding is overstating a bit, but here's what just happened:  I was at my desk with my right ear bud in listening to music at a low volume.  The music dipped out and a phone call was coming in.  I looked at the phone and I didn't recognize the number.  At first, I thought I should let it go to voicemail.  Then I remembered: my outgoing message is my impression of a robot saying "You have reached the voicemail box of..."  Oh god, I can't let people who don't know me hear that.  So I answered the call.
     The whole process made me feel ridiculous and of course brought up the reasons of having an outgoing message you don't want people to hear.  Well, I do because I thought it was hilarious.  When I got my new phone, the immense pressure of recording a new outgoing message got to me.  I'm not kidding, I sat in front of the phone recording messages for an hour.
     The old message was "You have reached Nancy's phone.  Please leave a message."  What I liked about it was that is was short and to the point.  What I did not like is that every person who left a message started with "Hi Nancy's phone.  I'm looking for Nancy..." or some variation thereof and they all thought they were so clever.  But I had a serious mental block about saying "This is Nancy..." because it wasn't actually me.  It was a recording of me.  Then I would over explain and the brevity would be lost.  As a side note, my sister's outgoing message is insufferably long- to the point that I don't want to leave her a message.  Seriously:
"Hello.  You have reached Queen Amadala's voicemail box.  Unfortunately, I am unable to take your call at the present time, but if you would like to leave me a brief message with your name, contact information, and the best time to reach you, I would be happy to return your call.  Thank you, and have a pleasant day."  I fell asleep listening to it.  Also, I think she hired wood nymphs to record it so it's overly enthusiastic and high pitched.  I've stopped calling.  (Also, she's not in PR or anything like that where an overly cheerful message is good business.  There's no reason for her long, happy message.)
     I digress.  The point was, I wanted to avoid that, but I was also hung up on saying "this is Nancy" or "this is Nancy's phone."  I tried many variations including "Nancy.  Message."  Mary suggested I imitate the automated message.  After two takes, I was pretty sure I had it.  She called my phone to check in and confirmed it was funny.  As per yesterday's post, I always like to go for the joke, so I left it and there it remains.
     I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my outgoing message.  Shortly after I got the phone my mom asked me if I got a new phone because my message "sounded funny."  Of course she didn't mean it made her laugh-funny, she meant weird-funny.  Oh well.  Only people I know call me, and those people know it's funny.  Except for when people I don't know call, and I have to answer my phone.

Jokes That Aren't Worth It

     Usually I say to always go for the joke.  It's worth looking a little ridiculous if it's funny enough.  However, there are a few exceptions.
     1.  When jokes cost money.  Just like my friend's "I can't afford a $4000 joke" couch, sometimes jokes cost money, and spending that money is not worth the 30 seconds of laughter.  There have been many a times when I wanted to purchase a book for someone as a joke.  And not just a joke book, but a book that served as a joke.  But then I think it through and realize I'd be spending $15 to $20 on a book, and then I'd have to wrap it, and wait for the person to open it.  We'd have a good old laugh when they opened up, and then what?"  First of all, I probably don't have another gift because I spent the alloted money on the joke.  Second, now he has a book that just takes up room on his bookcase, and he has to explain to every person who sees it "Oh, it was a joke." 
   2.  When jokes make you sound stupid.  Sometimes I do this just for my own amusement.  I ask the obvious, stupid question, because I think it's funny.  When with people I know, they can see the look in my eye, and they don't answer.  They let me have the moment.  However, you can't pull this joke when you're not live or with people you don't know.  Mary made this point just a few minutes ago when she wanted to tweet "It's funny Harry Houdini is trending.  Did he just die?"  Now, I know that's a pretty funny joke.  But others might just assume she's a fucking idiot.  She's not.  It's not always worth making the joke when you have to spend the rest of the day defending it.  Unless it's a really awesome joke. 

     Another joke related topic I was discussing with my friend Tootie was about overhearing other people's conversations.  I was thinking about how often we overhear a snippet and roll our eyes at how dumb other people's conversations are.  And then I worry about when they overhear my conversations.  And I analyzed our particular brand of conversation, and how we often have flat out ironic conversations.  An outsider wouldn't really know we don't actually feel that way about the topic.  We aren't letting on with our words; instead we mean almost the exact opposite of what we're saying.  We know it, but passers by wouldn't.  Then I thought "what if I'm jumping to the conclusion that these other conversations are dumb too quickly.  What if they're also having ironic conversations?"  Tootie stared at me.  "You don't think other people have ironic conversations?"  No.  She doesn't think other people have ironic conversations. 
     I'm not going to stop having them though, because to me, that joke is always worth it.  Really, it's just the $4000 joke couch that might be out of reach.  However, if I ever become really rich, then I will resume my belief that the joke is always worth it. 

When The Cat's Away

     As a direct result from the all those awesome things I'm doing, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.  As evidenced by my neck pain, I must have slept on my head.  To combat the sleepy-sleepies at work, I stopped at Starbucks on my way to the office for a triple tall americano.  The combination of low sleep and high caffeine pretty much makes me over-the-moon happy.  It might be a fake chemically induced happy, to be followed by a huge crash-and-burn later tonight, but for now, it's great. 
     I enjoyed my banana nut loaf and triple tall americano as jovially as I possibly could.  It's possible my coworkers didn't share in my delight.  I may have also been chair dancing to the awesome playlist I was listening to. 
     And then, uncontrollable laughter.  I did it to myself, so it was hard to explain to others what was so funny.  Plus, they didn't ask.  I wrote this email to Mary:

I needed you earlier when I read a headline too fast.  It read "DoD Says More War Funds Possible As Senators Eye Cuts."

I thought "Wow.  Eye cuts.  That would really hurt."  Then I thought it was a really bitchy thing for the DoD to say, and a really weird analogy.  Basically, I thought the DoD was saying that getting more war funds was as likely as senators getting eye cuts. 

And now I'm laughing uncontrollably about it.  It doesn't make any sense.  Obviously that's not what it means.  I can never explain this to anyone else.

Now I am trying to explain it.  Because it was a great moment.  I was laughing so hard, I was crying.  Basically, I was that asshole who laughs at their own joke, but then takes it even further, and laughs so hard at their own joke, they cry.  The fucking funniest joke ever, and I told it.  I was realizing this as it was happening, and it only fueled the fire, and created a vicious laughing cycle. 
      And my coworkers kept working, deliberately ignoring the laugh attack I was having in my cubicle. 

Self Referential

     They say no man is an island, but we can sure as hell try, can't we?  I spend a lot of my time referring back to things I've said and done, expecting people to remember that I've said or done those things.  Most people don't, because a) that is super ego-maniacal of me, b) it wasn't that memorable, and c) they are purely focused on themselves.
     If you read ~M's blog every day, like I do, you saw her post about the Dead Island trailer.  Interest in this piqued because of twitter and however the twitter universe causes such things to trend.  Admittedly, I saw the words Dead Island over on the trending portion of twitter, but I didn't try to find out what it was because I usually understand so little of what's trending anyway.  Luckily, ~M filled me in.  She gave me a brief review before I watched it, summing it up as "cool, but also sad."
     Hours later, I was talking to Mary again, about a completely different topic.  It was sad, and I agreed; I stated it was "like Dead Island sad."  This amused me.  I want it to be something people say.  I like to qualify things in this manner, to put qualifiers in what should be a quantified scale- on a scale from 1 to Dead Island, how sad was it?  Dead Island sad.  (Regarding hunger: On a scale from 1 to Ravenous, I'm Guy Pearce.)
     Of course, this phrase will never take off.  Neither I or the Dead Island trailer have the type of following to make this a colloquialism.  I'll keep using it, however, and field the weird looks from friends and coworkers as I explain the origin of the whole thing.  Their eyes will surely glass over during the explanation, due to those three earlier mentioned reasons, but perhaps persistence will pay off.
     A few months ago, I wrote about the mysteries of my new climate- mid-way through that post I said "Where the hell do I live? Venus?"  This morning I was listening to the weather, and I heard the high for the day was going to be 73 degrees, followed by a mild weekend, and a wintry-mix on Tuesday.  I said, yet again, "where the hell do I live? Venus?" 
       Experts say that referring to things that happened earlier is somehow pleasing to the brain.  A concept that is known as a call-back, it's where we remember what is said earlier, and even if it wasn't really that funny, the fact that we're bringing it back up can make it funny, and bringing it back up a third time will make it hilarious.  Dead Island hilarious.  I crack myself up.