I have another childhood story.
When I was about four years old and living in California, I was a typical little kid. And when I say typical what I really mean is that I wasn't playing the trombone yet. I enjoyed riding my bike, watching the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and shooting dolls out of their houses with the pirate ship cannon. Dad even named the Fischer Price dolls for me. The dad was named Fischer Price, the mom was named Pearl Ofgreat Price, and their baby was named Half Price. The pirates had many victories. Dolls are boring.
Anyway, that shows a little glimpse of my dads type of humor. He's an astrophysicist, so he has to be sophisticated. There was no way in heck that I was going to understand that the doll names were jokes. I just thought dad was giving them typical doll names.
Now MY humor was something totally different. It was far from sophisticated. It was deafening and damaging. Distinct and disturbed. Dramatic and dysfunctional....
NOTHING is funnier to a four-year-old than "poop".
One day I was jumping up and down on my parents' bed. Those of you who knew me as a child know that I was the crazy hyper kid as well the kid that thought she was really funny but wasn't. At all. Basically it shouldn't come as a surprise that I was crazily jumping on my parents' bed.
After about 5 minutes of crazed jumping, my dad walked into the room.
Me: "POOP!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
Dad: Not laughing
Me: "That was really funny so he must have not heard me. POOOOO-OOOOOOOOP!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Dad: Calmly "Rebecca?"
Me: Still jumping "Yes?"
Dad: "Could you sit down for a moment?"
After a few more champion bounces, I reluctantly sat.
Dad: "Rebecca, can I ask you something?"
Me: "Yes."
Dad: "Why is poop so funny?"
I was stunned. Did he really not know why POOP was funny? It's a hysterical subject because...because...because?
Me: "Well...it just IS daddy. It's really funny."
Dad: "But why? Why is it funny? It's just a word for disgusting things that come out of our bodies."
Me: giggles.
Dad: "If poop is so funny and it's just a word, why can't something else be funny? Why cant 'soap' be funny?"
Soap? SOAP?! Did he say that? But it's just NOT funny. Again, a good explanation escaped me.
Me: "Because it's just not."
But why couldn't it be? My father had me stumped. It was an excellent point. Why wasn't soap funny? I needed to figure this out.
Dad: "OK, I was just wondering" Walks out of the room.
Now he left me to my own thoughts. I pondered and pondered. I just couldn't figure out why one word was funnier than the other. It has been a puzzle that I have yet to solve.
The end result of this moment with my poop-joke-hating father was that I no longer used poop as a joke. I don't think he knew what this did to me. He probably did not expect a child to actually think for a long time about this life-destroying question he posed, but it ruined me. I locked that kind of humor away and thought that if one day I found the answer to his question I could bring it back out.
From then on, I became more sophisticated in my humor. But I'm not saying it became any more sophisticated than the other four-year-olds. I still thought cartoons were funny, and I still thought my dad was funny (he didn't like poop jokes, but he really did know how to make a kid laugh. I STILL think he's hilarious), and I still enjoyed it when people put shoes on their ears and underwear on their heads. The poop jokes just ended.
My life was lived in this state until it came time to pick a band instrument at age 10. I think my subconscious picked the trombone as revenge. My body had been deprived from potty humor for so long that it was drawn to the instrument that sounds the most like flatulence.
Not only did it sound like flatulence, but all the kids who picked it were the awkward ones who still enjoyed potty humor. I picked the trombone and joined the socially awkward kids. Maybe if I had been allowed to release my potty humor to the world as a child, I would have picked the flute and eventually outgrown band. But alas! I did not, and I blame my father. My father who also happens to be socially awkward. Thanks dad. You ruined me and doomed me to a life of social awkwardness where I must continue to release my suppressed and poopy creativity through trombone. But the joke's on you. You're the one paying for my college degree in trombone performance. The degree that won't allow you to get old because I can't afford a nursing home on a band directors salary. If only you hadn't asked that question...
Maybe I should ask you.
Daddy? Why can't soap be funny?
-The Socially Awkward Trombone
