the offWhites

I can’t be bothered to look up the posts since I can’t recall which blog I posted it to, but I’ve announced to those of you who’ve read me that Gilda Radner’s Endangered Feces bit is inarguably one of the funniest jokes ever. Poop is funny. This was a correct answer in a Fiction Writing class once, no kidding.

Dr. De Grave to one of my classmates: You need to find another word to use here. This is a serious passage, “poop” doesn’t work.
Classmate: Why not?
Dr. De Grave to class at large: What is poop?
Me: Funny.
Dr. De Grave: Exactly.

Yesterday I learned that poop can require a bit of aging to become humorous. While Lisbeth and I have been working on the house and traveling to Michigan, I’ve let the back yard get somewhat out of control. Our lawnmower is one of the human-powered variety, and must be used every 5-7 days to be effective. After about three weeks of disuse, I had to leave it in the garage and use the weed eater over the entirety of the back yard. Sometimes big, wet piles of Labrador leavings nestle cozily in the high tufts of grass, entirely concealed from view. Sometimes, when said leavings are contacted by quickly moving weed eater string, they cease to be stationary. Less frequently, they do slightly more than simply lose their quality of stillness. Once in a great while, they become chunks large enough to land with an audible splat, and simultaneously discover a trajectory whose apex would, but for my presence, have been slightly behind and above where my head in fact was. Fortunately my blink reflex works well, and my sense of humor, now given some 20 hours of rest, has made more or less a full recovery. It’s still not that funny though.