Recently, my best friend told me that the pig hat I like to wear is corny. This really wounded me.
Okay, it didn't wound me. But it did start me thinking. Why am I a goofball who thinks pig hats are funny?
Then I thought, why do humans need humor at all?
So I say let's blame nakedness. You see, most of us get embarrassed when we are naked in public. Some of us feel stupid when we walk face first into a glass door. And I tend to feel like a dweeb when I forget my mother's birthday.
We need humor because we make mistakes. Life would be awfully depressing if we constantly thought about how many times we've locked ourselves out of our houses. (I've done this at least seven major times in my lifetime, mostly when it was snowing.)
I think really funny people have given up the ghost of perfection. Take me for example. I'm never going to be Mother Teresa. I'm not even going to be as good as Hillary Clinton. So I've given up. And as a reward, I get to wear pig hats.
But my Anti-Pig-Hat best friend still wants to be perfect. Yes, she has a sense of humor. She tells kick-butt stories about the dumb things she sees other people doing. But she HATES it when she appears flawed. She can't let herself be corny because she actually wants to be a goddess.
I think the need to be a goddess is a common desire for women. If I can stray from my topic for just a moment, I'd like to explore the difference between girl humor and boy humor.
I don't think ladies tend to be as wacky funny as men are. Why? Because most women spend their lives trying to impress people. We are trying to attract men, we are trying to outgrow five thousand years of men saying "Hey, honey, get me a beer", and we want to be flawless, exotic, gorgeous goddesses just like we see in the movies.
Women want to be perfect. And a lot of women put on a pretty good act. They look and sound like they are in charge. Except when they are drooling over hot men. Then all women become giggling, sweaty fools who can't speak.
The point is: women try to avoid looking ridiculous, and perfection is the enemy of humor.
But lots of men seek out the most goofy situations in life. Certain men I know could be standing inside a burning house and they would still think, "Cool. Maybe I'll get to see the toilet explode."
Should women spend more time thinking about toilets? I don't know. But I think it's time to get back to my real topic.
Earlier I asked, why do people need humor? Well, I've decided that humor is the celebration of the ridiculous. When a pop bottle squirts us with Mountain Dew, we giggle. When politicians fall asleep during a boring meeting, we make fun of them. Humans make mistakes into joyous occasions. I celebrate with pig hats. My dad tells lame jokes. We all have our own sense of humor and we all use laughter to blow off steam.
That's why I'm a goofball. I want to have fun. I'm not going to worry about tripping or burping or wearing pig hats. When I fall flat on my face, I'm going to tell a story about it. And I'm going to write essays that remind people that life is basically pretty dumb. Because I think we'll all be happier if we just admit that we are silly, blundering creatures.
And you thought this was a humor essay. You didn't know I had a righteous cause. Do you hear me shouting from my soapbox, "People of the world UNITE! We are all idiots. Let's celebrate!"
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