It Hurts to Hit the Funny Bone

My dad used to tell my sister and I stories of his childhood and what life was like growing up in the Ditty household.  He has actually written these stories into a short, incomplete autobiography called Redbirds, Cherry Trees, and B.B. Guns: Joy in the Journey and I am sure he would be glad to try to get you a copy if you wanted one.  One of the many things he told us about growing up in the Ditty household was my grandma's rule concerning who got punished when my dad or one of his two siblings got into a fight with each other or teased one another.  The rule went as follows: the offspring who instigated the fight or initiated he teasing got punished along with the offspring who cried about it.  Well, my grandma may have not said it like that, but what she meant was that the punk who was mean got in trouble and the cry baby who cried about it was just as guilty for crying over something as insignificant as getting teased.

Well, the other day I found myself in a situation in which if I was living under my grandparents' roof, I would have gotten in trouble for sulking about getting teased and the other guy would have gotten in trouble for being a punk.  To make a short story even shorter, this is what happened.  I went to work on Tuesday wearing what most would consider a "golfer's" hat.  I know that those hats are not "in" right now, but I like it and so I decided to wear it.  As I was busy putting a cover over a light switch, one of my bosses walked into the area where I was busy working, looked at me, and said, "Who made you wear that stupid hat?"  Trying to be cool about it I said, "Well it's nice to see you today too."  And like he had planned this whole thing out my boss replied, "Well, I was just wondering who made you wear that."

Like Pumba, "I am a sensitive soul."  I don't like the kind of "jokes" that put people down and I really don't take them all that well.  Need less to say then, after I had taken our brief conversation in and thought about it for a little while, I began to get mad at the guy who called my hat stupid.  Worse than that, I began scheming and developing some great comebacks.  I was bitter.  What I should have done was shook off his words and prayed that my boss would know the power of them.  But instead, according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, I decided to murder that man in heart, and under both God's law and Grandma's law I was guilty.

But, under both God's law and Grandma's law, so was the other guy.  Instead of being uplifting and using good discernment in his speech, he opted to take the low road and try to get a cheap laugh.  In turn, he caused one of his brothers in Christ to stumble.  So, shame on the both of us.

The truth is, it hurts to hit the funny bone.  No matter how hard we laugh after we knock our elbow against something, there is always that sting.  The same can be said of getting cheap laughs.  It may make everyone in the room laugh including the person it was directed toward, but that doesn't keep it from hurting.