A Sense Of Humor

Nothing attracts me to someone, man or woman, more than a good sense of humor. It's a requirement, in fact, for me to even want to spend any time with them. My friends and I have spent many an evening helpless with laughter, too breathless to even be coherent. Without humor, and friends and family who share my sense of it, I would long ago have been committed to an asylum.

My mom will often join me in uproarious giggles. We once were driving down a country road when we passed a field of cows. Segregated from them was a bull...a virulent bull, and probably quite popular with the ladycows, if his man parts – sorry, bull parts- were any indication. My mom took one glance, and deadpanned “Dinner for six.” She was not referring to the size of the steaks he would provide.

I learned well from her: irreverence, humor, and a fondness for the word “fuck”. Not being a hypocrite, when I was about 12 she told me, “I swear- you know this. I can’t in all fairness ask you not to. However, learn when and where to swear. If I catch you swearing in front of your grandparents, you will be in deep shit, got it?” I never swore in front of my grandparents, and many people who meet me are a bit surprised the first time I burst out with a “goddammotherfuckin’bastard!” They learn quite quickly that is mild compared to what I am capable of, and swearing is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my level of crassness.

I am very lucky-- I have managed to find a man who shares my sense of humor! My boyfriend, IPA, keeps up with me and often zooms ahead, leaving us both breathless with laughter. I love having someone with whom I don’t have to watch what I say, or keep it in my head while giggling softly to myself, or feel inappropriate for even having thought it.

Example? Conversation from several days ago, on the way to the grocery store:

Me: We don’t have a lot in the grocery budget right now.
IPA: Okay. We’ll get stuff to supplement what we do have.
Me: Yeah, we’ll have to dig deep into the cupboards for all the forgotten shit in the back.
IPA: Gotcha, we’re goin’ deep!
Me: Right. And what we do buy will have to be cheap! We’re goin’ deep, and goin’ cheap!
IPA: Like a bad hooker.
Me: Exactly. A dead one, even.
IPA: A dead one?!
Me: Well, you’d be able to go pretty deep into a dead hooker. What does she care?
IPA: Right! AND she’d be cheap, ‘cause she wouldn’t even notice that you didn’t pay her at the end!
Me: Hmm…Or would she? Be cheap I mean. Obviously she wouldn’t notice non-payment. But wouldn’t you have to pay for someone to find you a dead body? And to specify profession might be harder.
IPA: Or easier. In the right area of town, and the right town of course-
Me: Of course…
IPA: -you could just walk around the alleyways until you found one!
Me: THEN you could go deep-
IPA: and go cheap!

Come to think of it, he’s pretty lucky too. Not many women would discuss the benefits of a lack of a hooker’s heartbeat with their men. (Except my friends- as I have said, they are just as crass as I am. That’s one reason I love them. Right now, they’re thinking up other benefits to dead hookers…)

~ Lemon Drop, M.D.