I’m from the Middle West, where I and my fellow taxpayers use a common form of humor. This humor combines exaggeration, irony, and self-denigration. The trouble with all this is that people from outside the Middle West don’t always get the joke.
Many years ago I met a nice fellow from somewhere in the eastern part of the United States. At one point he told me that he was a poet. “A poet,” I said. “I have to tell you that I can’t tell iambic pentameter from a row of beans.”
“Don’t derogate yourself,” he said with the kindness of a saint. “You can learn whatever you want.”
This baffled me. I didn’t know what to say. You can’t tell a guy that he missed the joke. That would be insulting. I realized that it didn’t matter if he understood that “beans” meant “soybeans.” I could’ve said “corn,” but it was already too late. I also saw that it would be pointless to show him one of my sonnets.
While still a lad and all the world was in birth, I fell in love with a girl named Mary. She came from South America. Her black hair, brown eyes, and numerous other bodily improvements hit me like a gravel truck. She was a girl, I was a boy, and the summer fields of Iowa rose and fell with the feminine attributes Grant Wood made famous.
The girl went off to visit someone somewhere beyond the Poconos. When she returned, I rushed to her side. “We need to talk,” she said. The “need to talk” has spoiled far too many of my summers.
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t love you the way I did before.”
“Why not?”
Mary, who was growing tired of my questions, produced an answer. “You’re too critical of yourself. You don’t have enough self-respect.” (These events occurred prior to the popularity of the term “self-esteem.”)
The need to talk ended. I could’ve told Mary she was a humorless moron, but that wouldn’t have made her think any better of me. Someone later told me that Mary had got married and divorced. Events happen quickly. I assume that the need to talk arose.
I’m presently visiting the country of New Zealand, where the people are friendly and polite. I’ve met many of these people, and I interject humor into every conversation. Sometimes the victim laughs. Others may smile. The Iranian barber at a nearby town always laughs at my jokes, and I laugh at his. “You should charge a dollar per eyebrow,” I said.
“Next time,” he said. “Next time.”
I’m staying with my friend Joyce, who owns a house in New Zealand. Joyce is from Iowa. A opossum came down one of her two chimneys and made a mess. This offended me so much that I climbed onto the roof of the house and put some chicken wire over the appropriate chimney. The opossum hasn’t come back.
I made far too many comedic gestures during this heroic chimney work. Joyce laughed, but not until I returned to earth.
I hope Joyce doesn’t tell me I lack self-respect. I hope she doesn’t say we need to talk. You never know what’s going to come down the chimney.
