I knew this was going to happen one day.
I’m not funny anymore.
It’s true. I woke up yesterday and all my funny was gone. All day long I thought about what to write about, but everything that crossed my mind was very boring and bland. I almost wrote about how I keep throwing a few stray socks back into the dryer with every new load because they don’t have a match, which suggests a certain amount of laziness on my part, but there wasn’t much more to it than that. I keep drying the same five socks over and over again. Conclusion: Snore. Not funny.
I listened to a comedian on YouTube and giggled aloud, but when it was over I still wasn’t funny.
I started to panic.
I met Ryan for lunch and had a hummus sandwich. We stood in a long line to order and ate outside. Nothing funny happened at all.
When I got home and began working, I tried forgetting about my funny and focused on work. But it was useless, all I could think about were a series of un-funny things: applesauce, sweeping, and gingivitis.
I checked the calendar and decided to take two maximum strength Pamprin pills. After twenty minutes, I still wasn’t funny. The only difference I noted was sort of a mild urge to drink herbal tea and watch The View.
Later in the afternoon, I took Christian to his piano lesson, dropped him off, and drove to pick up a birthday present Ryan ordered for Christian the day before. For some reason, I thought I knew the location of the store, but I was wrong. I drove around an entire shopping complex looking for a store that was not there. I kept trying to call Ryan on the phone to verify the location, but he wasn’t answering. I finally headed back to the piano teacher’s house when Ryan called and gave me the right address, but at that point I didn’t have enough time to make it there before the lesson ended. And just in case you’re wondering, that particular part of the day wasn’t funny in the least.
When I got home, inching my way through rush-hour traffic on the poorest designed infrastructure in the state, I walked in the door, dropped my stuff on the floor, and crawled into bed. My head was throbbing, my back was aching, and I realized that not being funny is a painful way to live.
Ryan came in and sat on the bed and asked if I was okay. I didn’t want to speak the truth. I couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him that I would no longer be able to make him laugh. Ever, ever, ever again. I couldn’t bring myself to inform him that for the rest of our lives, he would have to provide all the funny, and I would provide nothing more than updated information on the five-day weather forecast. Instead, I just told him my symptoms—my head hurt and my body ached.
“That’s exactly how I felt the other day,” he said, “I bet you’re getting my cold.”
Hmmm. I’m not sure what to think. I’ve had colds before and still been funny. Could it be that I have a humor-resistant strain of the flu virus? Could it be that my funny will gradually return in three to five days? I’m skeptical, but I’ve got my fingers crossed. However, if it doesn’t come back (and I understand that it’s a real possibility) I want you, my readers, to know one thing—the temperature is going to cool off a little bit on Monday.
Damn.
