Do you have a funny bone?
If a group of people was asked if they had a funny bone, many people would say: “Of course I have a funny bone (ulnar nurve). It’s part of my elbow that I have knocked against walls, doors and many other objects and boy does that hurt!” But wait, I’m not talking about that kind of funny bone. I’m talking about another definition that is found at bing.com which describes it as: “A person’s sense of humor, as located in an imaginary physical organ.” My guess is that each of us has a different shaped “imaginary physical organ” (funny bone) that responds differently depending on the situation because what seems funny to one person may certainly not be funny to another.
Please don’t take the above as the absolute truth. I had a tenth grade geometry teacher, Mr. Pietryka, who gave quizzes where the answer was one of three choices: True, False or Uncertain. Sounds pretty easy but whenever I took the quizzes I found myself trying to put a round peg in a square hole (that’s about the extent of my geometry these days). The same three possible answers could have been test choices with my ninth grade biology teacher, Miss Betty Barton. The elderly teacher with jet black hair roughly every two months, depending on her beauty parlor schedule, could easily have been a drill sergeant in the Army. She had been around so long that when reviewing the class roster at the beginning of the year, she not only could tell us that she had taught one of our parents but also one of our grandparents! Miss Betty Barton would hand out three inch square scraps of paper and would tell us to number from one to ten on one side and then turn the paper over and number 11 to 20. She would then proceed to give us a spot quiz. She seemed to relish this activity so much that I wasn’t sure in using the three geometry answers if I were asked if she had a funny bone whether to put Uncertain or False. If I had to bet the ranch on it, I would say somewhere in her body she had a funny bone but it was buried quite deeply and was rather warped.
One would think that a funny bone would be a prerequisite for employees who work at advertising agencies writing commercials for their clients. Unfortunately, I have found one agency whose funny bone must be broken or it was removed surgically for some reason. I would suggest a cast on its funny bone or a transplant from anyone, even Miss Betty Barton. I dug into my archives and was amazed that it has already been a year since I wrote a letter to the company that sells toilet tissue and has run numerous television ads of what my funny bone classifies as offensive.
I wrote: “To Whom It May Concern: I have tried to email you twice, with no indication that you ever received my email. Therefore I am writing you via U.S. mail to voice my displeasure.
“I have seen your bathroom scene many times on television advertising toilet paper. There are several similar commercials including: an alligator, bunny, frog and little man peering at the toilet and saying: ‘I see everything and forget nothing.’ This is repugnant to me as though the above characters are Peeping Toms.
“These commercials have two impacts on me: one, I remember the commercial; two, I will not purchase your product! I suggest you change advertising agencies! I am not in fear of having been seen because I am not using your product.”
As could be expected, I received a form letter from the company thanking me for my input and making some generic statement saying they would look into the matter. I’m sure my letter rapidly found the circular file since not only are the commercials still running, the company has released a new commercial with birds on wallpaper that ‘see everything and forget nothing!’”
I did not intend to write this column today but while I was brushing my teeth, the light globes over the bathroom mirror rattled as though there was a minor earthquake. I ran to the kitchen to ask Barb if she had sneezed or whether it was the sneeze of a church mouse. When she answered it was her sneeze, I told her if it was a church mouse, I would have told it next time to stifle its sneeze with a piece of cheese. As usual, Barb snickered and said: “That’s a good one.” You see, Barb is the perfect wife or we’ve been married so long that our funny bones respond in the same way or both.
This is not to make fun of Barb because my sneeze scores far higher on the Richter scale. It’s just that Barb sneezes in patterns of six to eight sneezes at a time, so it’s more like getting many aftershocks.