THE COMEDIAN
Cindy Maddera
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I cannot tell a joke. I’ve never been able to tell a joke. There was this campfire activity we’d do at every 4-H camp/retreat. It would start with Paul, our 4-H extension office director, singing out “Joke! Joke! We call for a joke!” Then someone would stand up and tell a joke. We had all kinds of responses at the end of a joke telling. The one I remember now is “and the farmer hauled another one away; you could tell by the smell it wasn’t hay.” I never volunteered to tell a joke. If I was pressed for something or put on the spot, I would stand there frozen like a dear in headlights. “Uh, uh, uh…..knock knock!” I’d start and then panic about where I was going to take this knock-knock joke. Would it be the interrupting cow or the orange and banana routine? Which ever one I chose, you could be sure that the farmer would definitely be hauling it away.
Jokes just don’t stick to the inside of my brain. I can memorize lines. I had all of the lines for any scene of any play that Chris was in memorized. By the third listen of any song, I can easily sing along. I have a completely random six digit number I have to use to clock in for teaching yoga once a week. It’s in there. I plunk those numbers into the little logging machine every Wednesday without blinking. I read or hear a joke, laugh or chuckle, and then that joke is gone. Poof! It’s not just the act of remembering the joke, but it’s also the delivery. I might on some rare occasion remember a joke, but then some how scramble up the punch line. I saved a stupid advertisement/newsletter for weeks because it contained a list of Dad jokes. I kept thinking I would pick one to remember, but instead it just sits there cluttering my in-box.
I’m telling you. I cannot tell a joke.
This is okay with me. I’ve never been one for being put on the spot. I once walked out of a session at a science conference I was attending because I was put on the spot to give a five minute speech about my work. I said “No thank you.” and walked out. My job in life is not to be the joke teller, but to be the joke listener. I will laugh at your joke. Seriously. It doesn’t have to be funny. Just the shear act of you telling the joke will make me laugh because I appreciate what it takes to tell any joke, even it’s a bad one. Of course, there are exceptions. I don’t laugh if the joke is mean or racist or crude and objectifies women. Michael has this one joke he tells when he’s drunk about a priest in a bar. I never laugh at that one. But if it’s one of those silly Dad jokes like “my chicken counts eggs; she’s a mathmachicken.” I am going to laugh. It’s a guarantee.
Joke! Joke! I call for a joke!