When the Only Alternative to Tears is Laughter
It was May, 2001, and my mother was critically ill. Her hemoglobin had dropped to 4, I wrote in my journal. She kissed my dad goodbye and said she wasn't going to make it… at last word [her stats] were improving some. On the other hand, as my dad said, giving her blood is like putting oil in a car with an oil leak - and not being able to find or fix the leak.
My nerves were frayed, to put it mildly. Later, in the wee hours of the next morning, I wrote: There is a TARANTULA on my back porch! I was sitting out there reading - in my bare feet - and saw it hop up to the doormat. I thought it was a TOAD, and leaned in for a closer look. [S]haking, I grabbed a can of bug spray - and tried to beat it senseless. (Well, duhhhh - it's FLYING INSECT SPRAY, and useless against spiders!) That's breaking the rules, of course - the rules being that if a spider is outdoors, where it belongs, I normally leave it alone. I have some sense of fair play. But a spider as big as my hand violates some unwritten rule, somewhere, surely...
Never fear, crazy arachnophiles, I didn't succeed in beating it to a bloody, lifeless pulp. It jumped just a nanosecond before I whacked it into next Thursday. It's still out there, waiting... biding its time... along with the its friends, the copperheads. Now I'm sitting here, writing this, feeling creepy crawly imaginary things brushing lightly against my skin in the dark...
Oh, but it gets better. Just one week later, we were about to leave for a much-needed vacation in California and I came home to find my father-in-law face down on the dining room floor. He was fine, as it turned out; he had an upper respiratory infection and was too weak to stand up without help. He’s all better now. But at the time - let’s just say my mind had had about all it could handle. …if you doubt I'm on the edge now, I wrote, you should've heard the B-grade horror movie scream I let out last night… I was looking for a shoe, pulled the curtain back, and mistook [what I saw] for a (possibly live, possibly poisonous) SNAKE!! What was the name of the woman who made her fame and glory as "the screamer" for all those awful late-night horror movies? I had her all beat to hell, I swear! (I am NOT normally a screamer, truly I'm not. If I saw a mouse in the kitchen, I'd probably jump up and sit on the counter until I figured out how to trap and release it, or kill it, but I wouldn't SCREAM. [T]he only thing that rates this kind of screaming is a fully grown rattlesnake coiled up in a box held by your own child and shakin' his tail in the middle of your living room - certainly NOT a scrawny, dried-up, most-definitely-dead earthworm stretched out on the windowsill. Scared Katie witless, but J.J. wisely ignored me and went on making travel plan changes...
I didn’t try to help with the last-minute alterations in our itineraries, because after lunch at my favorite Vietnamese restaurant the next day, I opened my fortune cookie and read: “Any arrangements you make today will be final.”
Black Humor: Tasteless Comedy or Healthy Coping Mechanism?
In tragedy, the hero begins in a state of harmony with the world and those around him; as the drama progresses, he falls into a state of chaos and unhappiness. In comedy, the opposite is generally true: the hero begins in a state of chaos, thrown into improbable scenarios and heaped with exaggerated troubles - all likely to be resolved in a happy ending.
The purpose of comedy is simply to entertain the audience and make people laugh; its appeal is that it often goes a step further and lifts us out of our own sorrows, if only for a moment. So, is it any wonder that “black humor” (also known as “gallows humor” or “morbid humor”) has emerged as a subgenre of comedy?
Classic examples of black humor can be found in cemeteries everywhere. My mother’s favorite epitaph was “I told you I was sick!” Another classic is carved onto the tombstone of Lester Moore, a Wells-Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona:
Stressed out over the thought of global nuclear annihilation? Thumb your nose at it. Laugh. If the very thought of making fun of such terrible, horrific topics turns your stomach, then maybe black humor’s not for you - but, back in 1959, Tom Lehrer relieved some of the stress (while making some sobering observations on the futility of nuclear war) with this little ditty:
When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
But don't you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day never more adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.
And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.
We will all go together when we go.
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.
Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be French-fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.
Down by the old maelstrom,
There'll be a storm before the calm.
And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.
Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a te deum
When you see that I.C.B.M.,
And the party will be “come as you are.”
Oh we will all burn together when we burn.
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it's time for the fallout
And saint peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.
You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollah's.
And we will all go together when we go.
Ev'ry Hottenhot and ev'ry Eskimo.
When the air becomes Uranious,
And we will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.
Some days, there’s a fine line between laughter and tears. If given a choice, I prefer laughter. It really is the best medicine.
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Comedy: May 17, 2006 Issue [#1034]
