The Funny Thing About Humor

Did you ever have one of those days?.The kind where you can't see the humor in anything, no matter how hard you try?.That's how my day started out. I got out of bed (that was my first mistake) at 7 am. After fifty cups of coffee and 49 trips to the bathroom, I sat down to the computer to write.

It wasn't happening. I think I wrote the same paragraph fourteen times, juxtaposed, rewrote, edited, deleted, added more words, then deleted everything and began again.I wonder if Erma Bombeck ever had that problem. She was always funny.

My lips always began to curve upward the moment I spotted her byline at the top of her column.I wonder if other humorists have this problem.Maybe it's just the state of things.In order to write humor, one must think funny. A hard thing to do in this day and age, when everything seems to be falling apart like a stale cracker.Maybe it's the price of gasoline.

No longer can we country folk afford the luxury of going out for a Sunday drive. We have to make one trip into town count for the entire week. We have to grocery shop, do our banking, go sightseeing, eat out, see a movie, pick up the grand kids, go visit Aunt Vienne, go to the library, attend church services, browse through the flea market, then pray all the way home that we have enough fumes left in the gas tank to get the car all the way into the driveway.

And Nixon once made the statement that gas would NEVER exceed the price of one dollar per gallon. Oh yeah, he also said "I am NOT a crook!".Then again, Maybe it's a sign of age!.

I used to think everything was funny. Once I even started laughing during a funeral. Now that was embarrassing. The more I tried to stop, the funnier it all seemed. People were staring at me so I held my hankie over my face and shook until the tears flowed down my cheeks. Half the mourners came over to console me, thinking I was a grieving relative.

My shrink would say that it was just a manifestation of Social Anxiety. Must have been, cause afterwards I can't even remember what I was laughing about in the first place.I used to laugh when I, or anyone else, fell down. Falling was like a knee jerk to me. You fall--you laugh. Not anymore.

I watch my step very carefully.like I am walking around in a barn yard full of chickens. (If you've ever been around chickens, then you know WHY one needs to step carefully).

I finally gave up on writing and decided to take a break and check out my email for the day. I logged into my account and there was enough spam in my inbox to feed a family of twelve.Most of it was advertisements. Everything from Viagra to detergent.

Then there was all those email from friends. The ones that tell you to read it and forward it to twenty people, within the next three seconds, or the roof would fall in on your head. I delete these emails, but for some odd reason, It bothers me. I feel nervous and I spend the day in constant fear.

Why would my FRIENDS do that? I'm glad I don't get email from my enemies!.Then there are those email messages that say that if I don't forward the email it means I don't love Jesus. Well I do love Jesus but would He really want me to inflict these emails on others?.I do forward the email.to myself.at all my other email accounts on the Internet.

I have about thirty now and I usually take one day out of the month to empty them. (note to myself: empty junk email boxes).Is it any wonder that I'm not feeling too humorous at this point in time?.I sure wish I could talk to Erma.

Leeuna Foster is a Marketing Strategist, Author and Poet. She has been writing for two decades and her short fiction and poetry have won several national and regional awards. If you enjoy Southern Humor, visit her website at: http://www.southernfriedwriters.

com.

By: Leeuna Foster