Wow Is That Funny!

“Oh, that’s a riot!” “LOL.” ROFL.” “That is soooo funny.” “Stop, you’re killing me.” These are all things people say when they are not actually laughing, but think what you said was funny or at least lightly amusing. If they really thought it was funny they’d laugh, right? It’s just one of the many verbal tics people have. We say stuff without thinking about it first. When I was working full-time and it was Friday, people would say, “If I don’t see you, have a great weekend.” I used to respond, “And what if you do see me?” The part I didn’t say was,” Should I have a terrible weekend if that happens? I think the older we get, the more we get stuck in what we say without realizing it. I once saw Jerry Seinfeld perform and he asked the audience, “Have you ever said, “Send them my best?” When you tell a friend that you’re visiting a mutual friend, the first friend usually says, “Be sure to send them my best,” to which Seinfeld replied, “Is that really your best? To ask me to tell them you send your best? Why don’t you pick up the phone and send them your regards, or better yet, why don’t you visit them? That would be your best.” At least these make sense grammatically, unlike the phrase, “I could care less.” Because if you could care less, then go ahead and care less. The point is, you couldn't care less.” If you said one of those things to me, I wouldn’t correct you out loud but I’d be thinking of correcting you out loud. And if you know me you’re likely thinking, “Oh, you’d say it out loud all right.”

Next up is another of our pieces of marriage advice. About using pet names. Okay, I admit my wife and I have a couple of pet names but we only speak them to each other. Not in public unless one of us slips, and forget it, I’m not slipping by revealing them here. When I proposed over 40 years ago, I visited a fortune cookie factory, where you could print your own fortune and they would slip it inside the cookie. The message had a pet name that only we knew, so she knew it was an actual proposal from me. Pet names. When used in public they often mask exasperation. Like a mother to a misbehaving child. “Okay sweetie pie, time to get off the swing and come home. Sugar pie, let’s get off now. SWEETHEART, I SAID NOW!” And why are they called “pet names” in the first place? Rover, Fido, Furball, Barker, those are pet names. I once had a wheaten terrier that my young daughter named Otis. I asked, “Why Otis,” and she replied, “He’s a wheaten terrier, wheat and oats, get it?” Otis it was.

Anyway, if we don’t see you, have a great weekend. And if we do see you, still have a great weekend,

Andy and John