Thursday, March 08, 2007

Never begin on a high note

So yesterday the wife and I went to this bar that has an after 9:00 half priced appetizer and drink special. Goddamn it was a nightmare, keeping ourselves hungry till nine. Well, no one said that being a cheapskate would be easy. So anyways, as we pulled into the parking lot, the male half of an elderly couple whom we had just avoided running over, began to walk towards me. I thought he was about to beat me with his over sized fedora hat but the fault was mine so I got ready for the thrashing.

But he had other things on his mind.

"One of your headlights is out", he said pointing to my car.

I was kind of relieved because I did say it was an over sized hat, didn't I?

"Oh yeah, I know, I was gonna get it fixed this weekend, thanks for telling me", I said to him.

"No problem", he said and walked away with a friendly smile.

"Look at that", I said to my wife, "How friendly these Americans are. If we had been in India, the guy would have said to me, hey since one of your headlights is out, can I have the other one?"

My wife found my observation funny. She complimented me on my sense of humor. I felt ecstatic.

Now here's the problem with your wife complimenting you on your sense of humor. After that point in time, every other joke, to her, looks like a lame attempt to live up to her compliment. Plus, it sets the humor bar too high for the rest of the evening.

And so it happened that when we were changing bar seats after we realized that the lights were too bright where we were and the wife had to make a couple of trips to move all her stuff and I asked her, "Do you want me to hire a moving van", it failed to spark any mirth. And when she had trouble finishing her spinach dip and flat bread and I asked her, "Are you okay, is the spinach dip eating you, after all there are four of those flatbreads and just one of you", she said "You know, you don't seem as funny anymore."

Moral of the story : The showcasing of your sense of humor should occur at the very end of the evening. Or, as George C explained it to us, "Always leave on a high note".

Or, alternatively, you could quit cracking jokes at your wife's expense.

7 comments:

Raj said...

Numerous studies have shown that a woman's humour coefficient peaks early in the evening and declines steadily after. While a man's coefficient peaks early in the evening and stays that way for the rest of the evening. This de-synchronisation in the sinusoidal curve has been the root cause of misery all through. Ancient Man used to get progressively churpier as the evening advanced, while Ancient Woman would complain of headache at about 10 pm.

RobRoy said...

Cracking jokes at your spouse's expense is a time-honored tradition going back to the early sitcom like "The Honeymooners" and "Everybody Loves Raymond".

Stick to your guns. You're funny, and that's not just your looks.

Kimberly El-Sadek said...

Humor is good unless it's at the expense of the person you are trying to be humorous with. You aren't the only cheapskate, my favorite pub has half priced appetizers which double as a light meal after 9, which means I have to hang out at school for 30 minutes since my class lets out earlier, but it's worth the two pints and eats for under $10 especially after the lecture on international economic development given by an ADD Persian who is a Marxist.

Anonymous said...

and i thought a man is supposed to
showcase his sense of humour
only while courting his would-be-wife
;)

giri said...

Gawker bhai,
I’m thrilled that you have actually VISITED my blog.
What do you do? Google all sites mentioning your name?
Aho bhagya hamare ki aap hamare blog pe padthare!
Maybe I’ll finally get noticed now…..

I’m been a ‘silent reader’ (sic) of your blogs for a few months now.
What got me hooked was that piece on India stopping export of tur dal to the US and its impact on you folks (you spreading tur dal in your neighborhood Indian diner and everybody scampering to get a few grains…) I could almost hear the cowboy/Wild West music playing in the background when you brandished that packet of dal from inside your jacket with a flourish.

Anyway, nice communicating with you, Gawker. And by the way I was looking for commercial uses of rat’s milk – maybe found one, rat’s milk cheese.

gawker said...

raj : Yes, which is why we need a method for folding the fabric of time to make chirpy time for both genders coexist simultaneously.

robroy : Thank you, yes, I hope to take this tradition to a new level, one that Ray Romano will never be able to attain.

lumi : An ADD Persian Marxist? That sounds like a capitalist pharmaceutical manufacturer's wet dream.

tejbir : Initially it's for courtship. Afterwards, it is for self-sustenance.

giri : From technorati you get to know who is talking about you no. And thank you for the compliments. Yes, I wrote that post in a state of toor dal shortage panic. Sometimes I still wake up at night after dreaming of sambar containing chick peas instead of toor dal.

Also, I hope your applications for rat milk will be well received by consumers.

paranoid doc said...

thats lovely haha...serves you right.. a clown and his glory! mmuaaahh to the wifey!