Now That's Funny. I Don't Care Who You Are

"Humor is a bad experience plus time"  I believe Will Rogers once said this or at least Buddy Greig gave him credit when he related the quote to me.  I have found this to be true in most all embarrassing situations I have experienced during my life.  Being somewhat left brain I tend to use a lot of graphs and formulas to help me understand things.  Accepting Roger's hypothesis as the truth, then:

H = E + T

                                                                                                                                                           where H = Humor, E = Bad Experience and T = The time it takes to get over the embarrassing event.

Sometimes the "T" is only minutes and sometimes days or years.  But, eventually you can look back on something and laugh about it.

In my personal experiences, I can vouch for this being true.  My first application of Roger's Theory occurred in Ms. Vitterbo's second grade class at South Park Elementary School on Highland Ave.

I was an innocent kid who did not know that flatulence was not socially acceptable in public. After letting one "rip", Ms. V hollered, "JAMES HUGH".  I learned two things right there, 1) Farting should be left to the playground and 2) I preferred being called Jimmy.  The other variable in the formula also came into play, while my T  was for a duration of many years,  The T for the rest of the students in the class was only a few seconds.

Once while fiddling with a foam ear plug, I somehow unconsciously put it in my nose.  Realizing what I had done, my actions resulted in pushing it further in.  As panic struck I was confronted with the possibility of going to Medical to have it removed.  This would not have been a good idea as my good friend, Dr. Webb would not have maintained "the patient/client privilege" when it came to an event such as this.  Gaining control of the situation, I decided to check it out in the rest room mirror.  On the way, I got the brilliant idea of closing one nostril and blowing.  It worked.  It shot out like a cannonball.  Being confronted in the hall by Arlene, the secretary, I admitted what I had done.  My T was about one year, hers was only seconds.

I once dropped a touchdown pass in the end zone in high school.  I am expecting my T to be up at the 50th year reunion.

At my retirement party, My Mother even told stories on me.  My Mother for God's sake!!. 

Conversely thinking, my T was only seconds when my lifetime friend, George, tripped in the middle of the road chasing a foul ball.  It still wasn't funny to him the next day when he arrived at the park to find that we had found a piece of chalk and made a body outline on the road where he had "bit the dirt".

All of this said brings me to the inspiration for this blog.  While eating lunch in a local deli a couple of days ago a potential humor event happened to a young woman.  I was sitting at a table in the back, near the restrooms when this young lady dressed in a professional looking pant suit briskly walked by.  As she passed I noticed that she had a piece of toilet paper hanging from the top of her pants to the floor.  I mean it had to be five feet long.  She was walking so quickly that no one could get over their "gasp" quick enough to say anything.  When she got to the front and had to stop for the door someone evidently told her and she frantically removed the paper and quickly exited.  The entire restaurant started chuckling at the same time. 

I have been wondering what is the duration of that young lady's T.