Giving Chickens a Heads-Up

I've always highly valued humor. It's a commodity that's wide-spread, easily produced, and comes in a variety of forms. You may not share someone's particular "sense of humor" but pretty much everyone has one and uses it to: create a little happiness, impress, lighten the mood, make a living, or, most genuinely, make people laugh. The hopelessly flawed are always redeemable in humor, at least that's what I tell myself.

According to an excerpt I literally just googled from a book entitled The Sense of Humor: Self and Laughter in Modern America, the phrase "sense of humor" has only been around since the mid-1800's, when it was first considered to be valued in modern society. The idea that humor was a valuable asset, a characteristic that held high esteem on the social ladder, was first started in America, naturally, and has been a part of our culture ever sense. Before then, it was stories and fables that held the humor and there was a time and place for laughter. Anyone able to read or remember one of these fables was capable of making others laugh but the idea of having a funny-bone all your own that might just be funnier than anyone else's is a relatively new concept.

I got all of this from one measly paragraph that summed up this book I have no intention of reading so most of it is complete bull**** but it's usually safe to assume I'm right. I'm almost always right. And that's the truth.

I place a lot of importance on sitcoms. Too much. Like, it's unreasonable really how important I find them. I feel like the quality of my life would significantly decrease if, for whatever reason, some new type of social reform banned all sitcoms and satirically-based television probably because those bastards in the White House didn't like being made fun of so much by people like Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Fred Armisen!

I'm not apologizing for that rant either. The banning of sitcoms would be worse than prohibition. Bootlegged copies of Arrested Development would so be hidden under my bed, It's Always Sunny would be in my freezer, and The Office, Parks and Rec, and Modern Family would be under the floorboards...or somewhere much sneakier now that I've given away my hiding spots.

I just really like funny things.

The point of all this was to explain that recently I've felt like I've lost some of my "sense of humor". I used to write about funny things related to American culture (without really realizing that's what I was doing) but since I've been in Bulgaria so long that's not really relevant and those types of things no longer come to mind. And I can't make fun of Bulgarian culture cuz that just seems super wrong somehow and, mostly, I might get in trouble. Plus, then it would only be funny to other PCV's and you guys probably wouldn't get it at all and think I had gone mad. Which is fair.

I think I can still make people laugh pretty well in person, but not being funny in writing makes me sad. Which is why I've come up with an idea to make this blog what it really should be - me relating my experience here, to you over there. I've come up with "Culture Thursdays" in which I write about something new/interesting I've learned about/experienced and share it with you here. I'm trying to get the word out to friends and colleagues here in my town so they'll invite me to, I don't know, can stuff or cut off a chicken's head!

I don't want to cut off a chicken's head. I don't even want to watch that happen. Maybe I'll just stick to feeding the chickens who still have heads (whispering to them secretly that they better watch out for their heads cuz people like to cut them off - I bet most chickens don't know this and will be super grateful for the heads up - pun intended).

Anyway, knowing me, I'll probably always be late with the "Thursday" theme but I'll do my best. You all already know that I'm always late for everything. I pretend it's an endearing quality that makes people go, "Oh, that Adrienne, always late. Isn't she just the cutest!?" instead of, "Damnit, where's Adrienne! She's always M-F***ing late that s***** h** b**!"

Please don't call me a s***** h** b**, thanks.

-Age