What's So Funny?

This is for Susan, who sent me this, her favorite comic, last fall. I love it! Maybe you have to have an appreciation of "old rockers" to get it. I know it was well-loved; it was yellowed with age and I think the copyright year is 1999. I had several comics on my fridge for almost that long....they were swept into a bin during the Great Decrapification, along with my favorite quote about drinking: "I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day." -- Frank Sinatra.

I love to laugh, and to make people laugh. I love cartoons, comics, and funny books and movies. I love people who make me laugh, and I really struggle with folks who have little or no sense of humor. Or who, at best, might mutter, "Hmm. That's funny," when everyone else is laughing hysterically. What's the point of that existence? For more than a decade, a friend here owned a comedy club and we bartered for services, so I was able to attend shows at no cost, and occasionally brought Sis with me. It was absolutely fantastic. There is nothing better in the world than going home with a stomach ache and a face ache from howling and screaming with laughter for an hour.

The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds
and think for ten minutes. ~William Davis
Humor is... despair refusing to take itself seriously. ~Arland Ussher
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago
have committed suicide. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Warning: Humor may be hazardous to your illness. ~Ellie Katz

I've been wondering if other species have what we would consider a sense of humor. I know dogs don't. You want an absolutely literal interpretation without irony or sarcasm, ask a dog. Maybe humor is unique to us human beans, maybe it's dependent on language. Sometimes being a human is quite a challenge, and I think I might like to give it up for a while. I'd sort of like to know what it's like to be a bird, for example, or -- as someone who's never seen the top of anyone's head -- perhaps a giraffe. But no matter how much they love each other, birds and giraffes don't try to cheer up their friends by making them laugh; they don't send each other favorite comics they've had for a decade. So if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I'd like to request Perpetually Human, because if I'd have to sacrifice having a sense of humor...? No way. Not even for an old rocker.