I never remember jokes and punch lines--at least not until
someone starts telling the joke again. Then it might come back to me, or a version of it might. In the same vein, when it comes to writing
humorous posts, or status updates, or pretty much anything funny for that matter, I’m
not very adept. While other family
members, namely my offspring, just seem to have a knack with writing material
to make people laugh, a tentative smile is
all I can elicit. So I usually don’t try to make jokes.
But today I actually came up with a good one…in the middle
of a CSIV lecture. We are studying polls and surveys, and the use of such
materials to shape public opinion. I had copied a newspaper article to discuss.
Its headline, “Funky Chickens Prefer Music”, had been derived from a skewed
analysis of a faulty survey, so we were discussing the merits of that
conclusion.
I said: “Here's another thing: the survey doesn’t consider what kind of music was played. Did one farmer play hard
rock music and another play classical? Did they notice what kind of music the
chickens liked best? I think most chickens probably want to listen to Bach…since they
ask for him all day long.”
And my seniors actually got it. They laughed. They didn’t
roar or anything, just a gentle chuckle, but I feel really good.
It doesn’t
take much to make me happy.
