Humour

True story: A couple of years ago, after completing my training in Aged Care, I did some volunteer work in a local aged care facility to gain some experience. On one afternoong shift I was instructed to go and clean the teeth of the two ladies in one room. I went to the first lady and asked for her teeth, which she took out and gave to me. After cleaning those, I approached the other lady and asked for her teeth, which she refused. I asked again and tried to explain that I just wanted to clean them. To which she got upset and was trying to get as far away from me as possible. Being new to aged care, I thought this was part of her dementia and didn't quite understand how to deal with the situation. So I once again asked for her teeth, which she yet again refused. Just then, the person I was working with walked in behind me and said "Betty doesn't have false teeth."

The first time I really laughed .. I mean hoot with shrieks of laughter was when I was reading Pygmalion ... the play that "My Fair Lady" is based upon. I just could see myself as Eliza in the gutter trying to sell flowers. I dont mean to be high brow but really did not have access to much low brow so now I do a muddle or mash up of both approaches.

cheers

I once volunteered on a kids camp and as a day trip we went to an aquarium. We were told the kids might be a little bit upset upon seeing the sting rays, as it hadn't been long since Steve Irwin had died.

Any way, when we did eventually reach the sting rays, the kids noticed that one of the sting rays looked a bit.... injured. They stood at the tank and watched this sting ray saying things like 'oh, that poor sting ray!'. Just before we moved to the next room, an employee of the aquarium entered the room and one of the kids in my group approached him and asked what had happened to the sting ray. He hesitated and than said, "she's been on a date". This didn't answer the question the kids were asking so they prompted him some more. He looked at me, before saying: "Well she was mated with a male and those marks are from where the male holds on." After a moment of processing this info, the response from the kid was "EEW!!" before a quick exit from the room.

Thanks made me have a little laugh, we cant presume. Kids are so caring if they are allowed to be. At that age I probably would not have been able to process it but these days sexuality is so out there, people have different reactions to things..

Ok this is my first time trying to share something this way so hopefully it works....

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Thank you all for sharing your funny stories. Great topic @Ace85!

@Bill16, thank you for sharing your humour. You mention that you don’t know if it’s funny and I guess that’s a personal thing – we’re all different with what makes us laugh. To me, as an animal lover, your story was a bit upsetting. I get that you weren’t hurting the whale but I tend to see animals as deserving of the same respect we give people so to me it seems kind of disrespectful to ride over a dead creature.

Anyway, I’m really glad you feel you can be honest on the Forums. I just thought I’d share my response to offer a different perspective. There are different types of humour and in particular, when jokes/funny stories are on the dark side, we don’t always agree. How do others feel?

Hmmm a joke of my own – I’m terrible at remembering jokes… My favourite place to turn when I’m in need of a laugh is “First Dog on the Moon” in the Guardian – it cracks me up but again, it’s probably not everyone’s cup of tea...

Yes it is really individual what makes a person laugh. I am getting over the bad behaviour of a fellow who is big on cartoons and pushed laughter as the best medicine ad nauseum.

I was so serious that decades ago I went hunting through the bowels of the Baillieu Library looking up irony and other tomes on literature to try to understand humour. That was before I had my milestone gut wrenching laugh about Eliza in the gutter. I now think that is hilarious because very few people take that approach .... Laugh at self .. what else can you do.