Monday Musings – The Joke Thief – A Comedic Lesson

 

Comedy 101 Class - Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle

As an active child playing freeze tag on the school playground, I heard my fair share of name calling. If someone was accused of cheating, the other child let the insults fly, but they didn’t fight (on most occasions).

I remember on child chanting, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” I was that child; I didn’t like to fight. My grandmother taught me that chant. It was corny but clever.

Fast forward to modern day me. I’ve been called many names, some good, bad, funny. Well, I can now add joke thief to arsenal of glossy language. Can you guess who called me that? It was my son, the one who is taking a comedy class with me.

The joke he claimed I stole was related to a statement he said to me in a random conversation at home. It was about the comforts of his house versus my house. We both laughed and I said, “I gotta use that for my Humor Happy hour video.” My guess is that he didn’t hear that part of the statement.

My son told me he was telling a friend one of the jokes he was developing for our comedy class. The friend said, “I think I heard that before.”

He said, “How could you have heard it, I haven’t said it in public yet.” 

“On your mom’s TikTok.” The friend pulled out their phone and clicked on TikTok; And there it was. 

My response to the joke thief accusation was, “you did not say you were going to use that as a joke. It was a random funny observation.”

Like kids on a playground, we had a (friendly) banter going back and forth.

“Ma, can you please wait until I at least say my jokes on stage before you repeat them?”

I made an agreement with my son that I wouldn’t share any of his jokes…in public. I might tell my mom…or my brother, but not the “public.”

I reminded my son that many of my jokes come from observational humor; things that I see happen around me and to me. As he now knows well, things he and his brother say aloud, become fodder for comedy.

I read my son my Miranda rights of comedy:

“You have the right to remain silent in my presence; anything you say, can and will appear in my comedy.”

What situation has brought a little humor to your life recently?