Things To Say In Certain Situations

One of the classic forms of humor is when there is an incongruity between something that happens and what you'd expect. If you think about it, a large percentage of the jokes you know stem from such a mismatch between situation and reaction. But like any aspiring funny-person knows, sometimes good laughs need preparation.

I don't mean that you purposefully rent a giraffe and take it to the local pub or anything, I mean that you try and focus on wordplay, double entendres, or at the very least making a funny face here and there.

That's the stuff!

Those are all great ways to get a chuckle, a giggle, a tee-hee, a chortle, a guffaw, or some manner of mirth-induced vocalization. And just because I happen to like you, and am a fan of spreading laughter in general, here are three things that you can say whenever you want to (hopefully) get a decent laugh in specific situations.

"Again?"

Seriously?

Have you ever had something bad happen to you? Who are you kidding? Of course you have. Unless you've lived a charmed life up until now, something bad has happened to you. Odds are, many bad things have happened to you. In fact, I'd wager that something bad has happened to you multiple times.

For instance, my POS car has decided to not shift out of park and had to be fixed on 3 separate occasions. People who know me well know that my car is unreliable. And I'll be like "Again?", because I'm just so exasperated with the constant disappointment of my car. But what if something happens that has not happened before, and you still say "Again?"?

I don't just mean that the first time you go to a new restaurant and the waiter accidentally forgets that you specified that you didn't want onions with your steak. I mean some CRAZY shit. Like you're sitting around your apartment watching a DVD, and a SWAT team crashes in through the windows and front door. After you overcome the residual effects of the flash-bang grenades, you look around and utter an exasperated "Again?".

"Who's retarded now?"

"If you ain't first, you're last."

Have you ever won an award? Or been recognized in front of a group of people for doing something that perhaps your parents wouldn't be ashamed of? If you're reading this right now, sadly you might not have.

Well, think back to the last time you witnessed somebody accept an award or honor. What happened? They got up to the stage, thanked some people (maybe a flying spaghetti monster) who helped them out, or inspired them, or whatever. The point is that they normally go on and on about how lucky they are, or how hard they've worked, or some other humble pretenses.

Or have some black guy steal your mic. It's whatever.

The first thing you need to say is "Who's retarded now?". Instantly, everyone watching you will honestly assume one of two things. One, that at some point your teacher, parent, mentor or whatever has told you that you were mentally handicapped and would never amount to anything. That is a little disheartening, but still really funny. Or second, that you're calling them (the audience members) retarded. That might not be too funny to them.

"Are you faking it?"

"This better not be a plea for attention..."

Everyone knows that a time honored tradition of "playing dead" in order to avoid being eaten by a bear. How that advice came about (maybe the bears?), nobody knows. Possums do it, hog-nose snakes do it, lots of animals pretend to be dead in order to avoid danger. How it works, nobody knows. Isn't the point of being a carnivore to hunt, kill and subsequently devour the prey? So if your prey takes some of the work out of it for you, no big deal. Right?

"Can we get some Diet Cokes with this?"

As a bear, or whatever, I would immediately go up to the "dead" prey and poke it with a stick or something. Maybe pinch it. I want to be sure that it's really dead before I start to eat it, because eating something that isn't dead might be kind of tough. Don't believe me? Try some extreme sushi some time.

Hint: it involves goldfish, but not sunglasses...

Now apply that to other situations. Situations where you know that the person is not faking whatever it is that you're accusing them of faking. Good examples include: people confined to wheel-chairs, an obviously pregnant woman undergoing labor pains, or in the worst case scenario: somebody who is clearly dying...

Yeah, that got kind of depressing there.

Perhaps we shouldn't make jokes like that all the time.