Sometimes my twisted sense of humor bites me in the fat ass. Who am I kidding? Sometimes? More like always.
Take for example the time I embarrassed my sister at the mall. We had all of our kids with us, and we were at the toy store letting the minions loose amongst the treasures. In front of the store at the mall entryway was a huge display of mini-replica robots from
Lost In Space. The robot toys were motion-sensored and would yell out "Danger, Will Robinson, danger, danger!" whenever anyone walked by. I waited until my sister and the kids were happily sidetracked, then I stood completely still in front of the display until all of the robots stropped chattering. As soon as my sister came to look for me, I frantically waved my arms and legs as far and wide as I could, setting off all two hundred or so
Lost in Space toy robots, echoing a chorus of "Danger, danger, Will, Will, Will Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, danger danger danger danger danger..." Anyway, I thought it was hysterical; my immediate and extended family, though, not so much.
There was also the time when I was in a college class studying
Beowulf. The professor's name was nearly identical to the name of the whale/person (can't remember at this point) in the story, and one night will studying (translation: drinking mead and eating Medieval snacks) we changed the name of the whale to the professor's name. This was all fine and good until we started covering that part of the story in a seminar, all sitting around a table, all facing each other, with said professor leading the discussion. Once someone grinned, I lost it and started laughing so hard and so loud that the professor threw me out of class to compose myself. The girls' room was directly across the hall from the seminar room, and she and the class could still hear me howling with a serious case of the giggles all the way through the corridor. Again, I thought then (and still think) that the whole thing from start to finish was crazy funny. Worst of all, I was in my thirties when I pulled that stunt. Maturity is not my strongest attribute.
And then ... there is last week when I fly the miniature white flag on my ENO board (interactive whiteboard) because it's useless. Ha ha, aren't I so funny making a flag that says, "ENO board, we surrender." After our school tech guy fixes my ENO board (yet again), I put the flag aside, sticking it out of one of the many electrical orifices in the rolling cart on which my desktop computer resides, and I promptly forget about it.
During my class right before lunch, into my room traipse six people: three district tech support people and reps from the ENO board company. They gather around the technology while I attempt to finish the lesson without losing any more of the students' attention. The head of technology for the entire public school department asks me to sign in to my account. After reminding the visitors, "I'm working here," I finally make my way over to see what they need from me.
This is when I notice that a camera phone has come out from one of our visitors. "Nice flag," the district techs tell me.
What? Huh? What ....
Oh. Shit.
The white flag is still saluting the sometimes-dead ENO board.
Trying not to further offend our visitors, I apologize profusely for my flag of surrender, but it's too late. One of the ENO tech guys has already taken and forwarded the picture of my creation on to other techs back at their main office. I find out later that they even told the tech crew covering another grade about my flag. The ENO board company reps think my flag of surrender is hilarious, which is a huge relief to my bosses and to me because it means that I still have a job, for now, anyway..
My joke-turned-insult seems to be turning back to joke status. Thank goodness, because sometimes my own sense of humor comes back to bite me in my own fat ass, and sometimes (okay, all the time) I just think I'm fucking hilarious. Plus, I really cannot afford to be in trouble at work yet again, although I'm sure I'd find a way to make that kind of funny, too.
