I recently wrote about how being a funny writer is a point of pride for me.
Am I as funny as David Sedaris? Um, absolutely not.
But, I regularly get compliments on the humor in my blog and my professional work. (Putting jokes in my corporate training videos gets people very disproportionately excited.)
This humor does not translate into real-life conversations, though. Very rarely has anyone said, “Tedd, you’re funny in person!” Don’t get me wrong, once I get to know you (or…maybe have a few drinks), I warm up and am not a total dud, but I’m not like Robin Williams or Tiffany Haddish.
My lack of conversational chutzpah is tied to my being the youngest of six kids. Growing up absolutely no one cared what I had to say. There was never really an open forum for Tedd to speak his mind, and, being the smallest, piping up really didn’t do much. When my older brothers were talking about dating, no one really cared about how I was doing playing Crash Bandicoot on Playstation (which was always very well, for the record).
Without much banter/speaking practice, I didn’t hone my conversational skills. AOL Instant Messenger was a game changer for me in high school and college because I could write my thoughts. My brain works much better that way! I don’t have to look you in the eye and SAY anything. I could be funny!
So, my childhood trauma was a push in terms of overall emotional development. Am I a sparkling conversationalist? No. But am I great at observational humor and dialogue? Yeah, kinda!
All that is to say, I had a really weird weekend a while ago where everyone thought I was EXTREMELY funny.
Incident #1
I was at the gym and on the stair stepper machine. The previous day, I had been on the same machine and seen a water bottle on the treadmill next to me. On this second day, a woman was on the treadmill with the leftover water bottle.
She finished her cardio, wiped off her machine, and left.
A man came up and looked at the machine. He turned to me and said, “Is that her water bottle? Do you know?”
To which I responded, “I don’t think so. I actually saw that water bottle here yesterday.”
If you know me, I usually smile about everything. Like, another one of my issues is I really like to be liked, so I usually put on a big smile and try to convince people I’m engaging.
In this situation, I didn’t do that. I was on a stair stepper, very sweaty, and was, quite frankly, annoyed some guy was talking to me.
So, when I said, “I don’t think so…” I was staring blankly forward with no facial expression at all. Not a smile. Not even a twinkle in my eye.
It was a shock, then, when the man suddenly doubled over in laughter.
“Oh man! That’s hilarious. You’re so funny!”
I looked at him confusedly, because…what was even remotely funny about that?
But then.
THEN. The guy on the machine in front of him turned around. He was also laughing hysterically and gave me a big smile. “Funny, man,” he said.
WHAT? Nothing about what I said was even joke adjacent. There was absolutely no humor in my sentiment, facial expression, or the verbiage of the sentence. I literally stated a very dull fact.
I would have loved to see my face then, because I had no idea what was going on.
“Oh man,” the first guy continued. “That’s so classic.”
WHAT IS CLASSIC?
The guy then started to talk to me. I had my headphones in, so I gave him my general shirk off statement: “Cool man” and smiled hugely to make sure he knew I was nice, but I also didn’t care at all about what he was saying. (I channeled the expressions of my brothers when I mentioned Crash Bandicoot.)
He tried to engage for a bit longer before giving up.
I still have no idea what was so funny.
Tangent #1
One of my favorite questions to ask in a group setting is “What’s your ‘go away’ phrase?”
As per the above anecdote, mine is “Cool man.” It’s a phrase I use when I want to do the bare minimum of acknowledging the humanity of someone else and the fact that they said something but also imply that I would rather be strapped to railroad tracks than hear any of their other thoughts.
I became aware of the ‘go away’ phrase at one of my jobs when my coworker would always say “There ya go!” when our boss would come over and question her about something completely irrelevant. In one CLASSIC instance (see, this actually is “so classic”) she said it no less than four times as my boss scolded her about something that did not matter at all.
End Tangent.
Incident #2
Of course, I told Ernesto about the weird stair-stepper incident. I was honestly hoping he had any insight into how “That water bottle was here yesterday” became the best joke of 2023.
Spoiler: He did not.
But later that night, we were at a bar. We’d just gone to a haunted house with some friends and were grabbing a drink after. We got a small table at the back of the bar and put our coats down then went to play darts.
It eventually got pretty crowded, so I went and collected our coats so others could use our table. I had an armful of coats and then a guy at the table next to us tapped my shoulder.
“You have my coat,” he said.
Rant #1
WHY DID THIS MAN PUT HIS COAT WITH OUR COATS? HE HAD HIS OWN TABLE.
End rant.
Resume Incident #2
So, I was like, “Oh, sorry!” (Again, people-pleasing like crazy.) Then he started weirdly digging through my hands to get his coat.
He grabbed it, but it was tangled, so I was trying to help and relaxed my grip, but then all the coats fell on the floor except his.
Okay. So, on a scale of 1 to HILARIOUS, this was a solid 2. Like…it was mildly humorous. Worth a chuckle. “Oh, that guy dropped some coats! Poor dunce!”
But, once again, I was met with GALES of laughter. GALES. Not only the coat man, but his entire table started laughing hysterically.
I turned to my friends, who had also seen the whole thing, and they just kind of stared at me. They had wry smiles on, which was the appropriate amount of mirth.
Coat man is doubled over, so I pick up my coats and go to my friends.
Ernesto WAS laughing and goes, “Wow, you are just SO funny today!”
Which did make me laugh. Like, WHAT? As I approach my 40s, am I turning into Buster Keaton? Am I just intrinsically middle-aged funny now?
I don’t know what I’m going to do with this newfound power. Should I do a comedy show? I’ve already started 50 Instagram accounts, why not @TeddDropsCoats, too? It could be a huge hit for people who want to know the status of water bottles on cardio machines. And maybe this is finally the forum for me to tell the world, and be appreciated for, how absolutely STELLAR I’m doing at Crash Bandicoot.