The masks were on down the hallway, onto the elevator and into the garage.  As we approached the car, I immediately took my mask off.  I appreciate the need, but really hate wearing them.  My better half however, instead of taking his mask off, proceeded to loop it around his ears and put the mask on his head, looking like a slightly demented nursemaid with a tiny bonnet on his head.  And I couldn’t. stop. laughing.  It was silly, slightly middle school and I needed that.  Nothing like unexpected humor.

I’m not a funny person.  My kids have always been quick to point out when I actually DO say something funny by exclaiming “mom made a funny!” as though it’s a once in a lifetime event.  I’m under no delusion that I’m the least bit funny, however, I married a guy who makes me laugh all the time.  Sometimes it’s a bad dad joke, a pun, a play on words or some slight physical humor like the mask on his head.  Sometimes it’s timely, sometimes it’s irreverent, inappropriate or dark.  Sometimes it’s too soon.  But it’s always funny.

I appreciate quick intelligent humor, the kind that catches you by surprise, the kind that makes you think, whoa, they actually said that?  The kind that makes my mother-in-love say, “Oh Doug”, in that slightly disapproving way, and then she giggles.  Laughter is food for the soul and for the psyche and in the last 9 months or so, humor has been a godsend.

Lately, is seems humor angers some people.  It comes at seemingly inappropriate time when we’re all supposed to be sad or outraged.  It might seem to make fun of people – or maybe it DOES make fun of people.  I understand sensitivity as I tend to be a sensitive person, but sometimes, we need to let it go and have a bit of a sense of humor, maybe even laughing at ourselves in the process.

According to an article I read recently in Psychology Today, humor keeps us psychologically healthy.  I don’t know about you, but about two to three months into this pandemic, I had no sense of humor, I was stressed and depressed.  Life was miserable.  But, like the blues, sometimes things get so bad, you either have to laugh or cry.  You give in to Murphy’s Law. And some people chose to laugh rather than cry.

Is there ever a time where humor is not appropriate?  Well of course there is, and obviously we have to check out the room.  But I’m reminded of the funeral scene in Steel Magnolias where grief and anger turn to tears and then laughter.  How many funerals have you attended where the stories begin and the tears turn to laughter?  This is not vicious humor, it’s a release. How many times have you witnessed something so ridiculous that you became angry and then began laughing about the ridiculousness of the situation?  Maybe you needed to laugh.

Some people deal with events and situations with humor because it’s their fallback.  It’s hard for them to be serious.  Just like most of us wouldn’t give someone a hard time for crying about something, maybe we should consider not criticizing someone for using humor to deal with something. After all, there is a very fine line between laughter and tears – sometimes we laugh through our tears, and sometimes we cry with laughter.  They’re just that close.

Victor Borge is quoted as saying “Humor is something that thrives between man’s aspirations and his limitations.  There is more logic in humor than in anything else.  Because, you see, humor is truth”.  This may explain why people believe some humor is politically incorrect.  Because humor is truth and sometimes people don’t want to hear truth.  As imperfect human beings, some of whom take themselves too seriously, humor can hit a little too close to home.  We might feel as though we’re not being taken seriously, that we’re being made fun of or someone disagrees with us, or we’re not given the respect we feel we’ve earned.  And for those of us who are a bit insecure, this is incredibly uncomfortable. How to we combat this uncomfortable response?  By taking a good hard look at ourselves, with a bit of humor and understanding the truth about ourselves.

Ever had a caricature done?  They tend to focus on your most prominent features and in my case, the things I’m most self-conscious about – my chubby cheeks, my chipmunk front teeth and my bulby nose.  Great humor can do the same thing.  I’m thinking satire, like  Saturday Night Live, where every gesture, vocal timbre and other features of the people they impersonate is brought to the forefront.  We laugh at it because it’s true!  Just like my chubby checks, it’s what makes me me.  Conan O’Brien’s hair, Cher’s vocal timbre, Joe Biden’s slow speech pattern, all fair game for humor.  We all, including me, may need to lighten up a little bit.  

American humorist Leo Rosten said, “Humor is the affectionate communication of insight”.  It’s the part of you that pays attention to things and people.  You can choose to take those things you notice and the craziness of life very seriously or you can choose to have a sense of humor.  You can choose to give people a hard time about seeing events through the lens of humor, or you can join them in the laughter.  Life is too short.  Don’t laugh at humor.