Putting my Audience to Sleep

My sister asked me recently when I became funny. I told her that I have always been funny but she has only recently come to appreciate my sense of humor. But really, I don't know if it because as I am aging I'm loosening up a little, or as she is aging her humor is expanding from just looking for opportunities to publicly humiliate me and laughing AT me, to listening to me and laughing WITH me.

That being said, I learned last night that I have a long way to go in learning how to capture the attention of an audience. At the end of every day Brett and I talk in bed about various things. I was relating to him what I thought was a particularly funny event that occurred on our local radio station when a listener texted in and wrote to one of the hosts, "You are the duh. The hosts were laughing about the text and the context. But, being the end of the day, I could feel my brain shutting down and what should have been a short story became much longer as the neural pathways in my brain rerouted again and again. Young people will have no idea what I'm talking about but if you have ever forgotten a word you know what I mean. And late last night ... well ... it happened several times.

Finally, I made it to the end of the story - and to the punch line, "You are the duh". Nothing. No laughter. No comment. Just silence in the room and the wind whistling outside. That was when I realized that my husband was asleep. Fast asleep. And for how long? Through the whole thing. All of that storytelling had been wasted!

A good slap on the arm roused him. I know. I'm mean that way. I mean - why didn't I just roll over and let him sleep? Because he HAD to know that he fell asleep while I was talking to him! (And because as a life-long insomniac I think it unfair that any human being should be able to fall asleep within 10 seconds of their head hitting the pillow.) Of course he woke up disoriented and had NO IDEA what I had even said.

But because he fell asleep while I was talking I say Brett, "You are the duh." If only he had stayed awake he would be laughing right now.