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The Oxymoron

‘Seriously funny’ were the words used to describe a presentation that I gave a while ago, back when I was in college. Of course I understood what the spontaneous critique referred to despite the oxymoron. In fact a lot of what I do is simply that, ‘seriously funny’.

I do not profess to be a comedian or that I am even generally funny. What I try to do is find the irony in every situation and usually there is some humor clinging onto it for the ride. Sometimes you have to flip the irony over, and like the slime on the bottom of a rock, the humor is there.

My point is that there are few serious situations that are not without some irony and therefore there is a good deal of humor even if sometimes you have to dig for it.

Why do I look for irony and humor? It is because no one else around me seems to be doing it, else I would sit back and listen and watch someone else be the fool. Some things just need to be done. The world can be a cold, emotionally-starved place. Life is desperately difficult for most not only in this country but also the world. Lighten someone’s day, lessen the load, make them chuckle.

Even if you have to resort to creative event shaping, help someone to laugh and make the time of day go by a little faster.

Example: my friend – let’s call him Lance, even if that is not his name - plays golf every weekend. Sometimes when the weather is nice he kicks out of work early, taking his cell phone with him and forwarding all of his office calls to it, just in case of emergencies. On his way home from the office, he takes in nine holes.

Now Lance knows that I have never been a golfer. We have known each other for years and Lance has often offered to teach me the game. That would certainly be an ego trip for Lance as he always brags that he could have gone pro. He has a low handicap. If it weren’t for work he could have made a living at it perhaps, eventually. It takes a lot of faith to pursue a dream across the economic tightrope without a safety net.

I have known Lance long enough and well enough to remember the grief he took from his wife a while back when he bought a new set of professional quality clubs. He had tried to sell his old clubs in advance of the purchase to help offset some of the expense but no one seemed interested in paying the price he was asking.

Finally he decided not to sell them and used the excuse of saving them for his boy, which sort-of temporarily got him out of the wife’s doghouse. At the time his son was 5 years old and at least eight years away from using adult clubs. So yes, the excuse was a stretch.

Still, note the genius of the concept. Lance instinctively knew that if a man ever does anything selfish while married with kids that he needs to find a way of making it look like he did it with the kid(s) in mind. It won’t work 100% of the time but it will lessen the severity of the solitary treatment. Flowers, a night out, cooking dinner…whatever works will re-establish the harmony in the marital universe.

Anyway, knowing that Lance has an extra set of clubs, I called him up and asked if I could borrow them.

He responds, “What for? I thought you said putt-putt was enough of a challenge.”

“Hey, hey. Can you negotiate the windmill, really?”

Lance chuckled. “No seriously, you are going to play golf with someone?”

“I am going to the amusement center to play a few rounds of putt-putt.”

“Seriously. Why do you need them?”

“Look, Lance, I am serious. I want to walk up to the booth and ask for a caddy.”

Lance laughed for several moments. “God, I would like to see you do that.”

“Then come along, hide and savor the moment.”

“I got the kid thing tonight. Wife’s night out.”

“Well, can I use your old clubs?”

“Yeah sure, just bring ‘em back whenever. They belong to the boy you know.”

The last time I went to play putt-putt, I took the wife and three kids. It was fun. I pretended to let my wife beat me but she really was playing better than I was. It’s a man thing. My son suggested that I was letting mom beat me. I seized the concept, with a “Now, why would I want to do that?”

On the way out, I had to wait for the attendant to get a very an unprofessional public ass-chewing about something inane and probably even bogus. I don’t care what someone does it never deserves a public dressing-down.

I decided that my next day off, I was going to give the kid a laughable memory. I was going to walk up to the counter with a bag of clubs and ask for a caddy.

E

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posted by Unknown @ 8:24 PM