THE DAY I MADE UP A JOKE

I thought up a joke.

Q. Why don’t you need a thesaurus to tell if God is holy?

A. Because there’s no sin-in-him.

Thank you. No applause necessary. Oh sit down you, it was nothing. Honestly, this is too much, people - it wasn’t even that f- oh you’re what now? rolling on the floor laughing? Well I’ll be. Oh really. Too kind, too kind. Really too much.

Yeah jokes aren’t really my thing. Like card games, I can never remember the good ones. And I’d be terrified of getting halfway through and forgetting the setup line, or the punchline, and then blustering my way out of it. Joke-telling is a bit like that, I guess - you drive a bus-load of people towards a big laugh and you hope to goodness you’ve got the confidence to get them there via all the right stops.

Sammy and I were talking about jokes the other night. I told her someone had taken a flippant comment I’d made on social media, and used it back at me as though they’d thought it up. A rehashed joke is never as funny the second time around.

“It’s a bit like kids going ‘Knock Knock. Who’s There? An apple. An apple who? An apple in the fridge, hahahaha,’” I lamented.

Out of nowhere, Sammy burst out laughing, but laughing in that way I could rarely aim for. Then, I laughed because I’d picked something that I’d intended to be the opposite of funny, and it had been accidentally hilarious. And that kind of thing is funny.

And that’s why I think joke-telling might not be my forte. I don’t have the confidence or charm to capture a room with an absolute corker. Better to drive the bus by accident, I think. And anyway, if I can make my wife laugh, that for now, is quite enough for me.