Bearly Funny

One of the teachers at work, a fan of Ingloreous Basterds, was telling us how he loved that movie and how he was now referring to himself as the "bear jew," a large, savage, jewish, nazi-killing soldier in the film, but not because he is any of those things (except jewish), but because he is very hairy. A half an hour later, as I was running out in the country, I thought how witty and funny it would have been if I had said, "That's funny, because my friends call me 'Gentile Ben!' I was pissed that not only had I missed an opportunity, but I missed the greatest double pun of all time, and I couldn't go back and explain it to him after the fact. Sure it's still witty and clever, but had I thought of it off-the-cuff and delivered it without missing a beat, I would have been crowned the cleverest man of all time. But I was a thirty minutes too late, and that makes all the difference.

Once in highschool, my teacher was reading us a note from his sponsored, African orphan where the kid was talking about his uncle Pepto, and I responded immediately with "Does he have an Aunt Acid?" I brought the house down. But there was no delay. No less impressive was last year when Lib drew tapeworms all over my dry-erase board in different colored markers with milti-colored segments raining from their intertwining bodies; it looked so festive that I referred to it as a "ticker-tapeworm parade". I didn't even know I was going to say it until it came out of my mouth; instead of laughter, she just grinned and nodded because she doesn't find witty things funny, but if I make a fart noise or create a new vivid string of swear words, she laughs uncontollably for minutes, which actually makes up for it because I'm vulgar and childish much more than I am witty.

Since this unheard pun had been eating at me for days, I finally had to tell the "bear jew" about my missed opportunity. I didn't want to, but I thought he needed to know--and it's funny. To my relief, I was met with laughter and a high-five, so even though it went against everything I stand for, I felt validated, and that is what is important. And since he thought it was funny, you have to read about it.