What Is It With Middle-Aged Men And Not Being Funny?
There's this guy in one of my comm classes. I can't quite remember which one at the moment, because they're all the exact same thing, and tend to run together, but I want to say Nonverbal Communication. Anyway, he's a big fat 35-year-old doofus. OK, so he's not fat in the sense of being, you know, FAT, but he's still a doofus. Stupid redheaded jackass.
He's just about 35 years old, so he's obviously about 14 or 15 years older than the average student in that class. Why he's in undergrad comm classes is anybody's guess, but my version goes something like this: He's an idiot who went back to school after years of being the assistant night manager at Blockbuster. He has no earthly idea what he wants to "do with his life," so he decided on the easiest-sounding major, Communication. He's been taking comm classes for seven years, which would explain why every single professor in the comm department knows his name, which, by some horrifically unfunny coincidence, happens to be Andrew.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah... So I was sitting in this comm class, and Andrew decides he's gonna make what his decrepit generation used to refer to as a "wise crack." You and I might call it a "joke." Unfortunately, Andrew completely forgot that he's an idiot, and therefore is unable to make people laugh. We were looking at pictures of people none of us know, and we were told to make up a back-story for these people, based solely on the one picture we were shown. This little exercise was supposed to highlight our own built-in biases or some such crap. (Apparently, I'm a bigotted homophobe who focuses on class separations and takes joy in the misfortune of others. It's amazing what people can do with diagnostic tools these days...)
When one picture was shown, Andrew decided to make his idiocy known to the world and shouted out, "She looks like an extra on 'Newhart'!" I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that the professor and I were the only people in the entire room who had any idea what this guy was talking about. Rule number one concerning "cracking wise" in a group made up of people who are a full generation younger than you: Don't refer to shows that were cancelled before your audience was even born.
He made another joke later, and it fell just as flat. When another picture was shown, he yelled, "The background behind her makes her look like a Branch Davidian!" This time, he got two people to actually snicker, while dozens more quickly leaned to the people next to them and asked in poorly hushed voices, "What the hell is a Branch Davidian?"
Andrew clearly does not understand his audience. But, really, who can blame him? After all, he's the one who's old enough for his shameless, John-Deniston-like flirting with the professor to seem not only inappropriate, but just plain wrong.
He's just about 35 years old, so he's obviously about 14 or 15 years older than the average student in that class. Why he's in undergrad comm classes is anybody's guess, but my version goes something like this: He's an idiot who went back to school after years of being the assistant night manager at Blockbuster. He has no earthly idea what he wants to "do with his life," so he decided on the easiest-sounding major, Communication. He's been taking comm classes for seven years, which would explain why every single professor in the comm department knows his name, which, by some horrifically unfunny coincidence, happens to be Andrew.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah... So I was sitting in this comm class, and Andrew decides he's gonna make what his decrepit generation used to refer to as a "wise crack." You and I might call it a "joke." Unfortunately, Andrew completely forgot that he's an idiot, and therefore is unable to make people laugh. We were looking at pictures of people none of us know, and we were told to make up a back-story for these people, based solely on the one picture we were shown. This little exercise was supposed to highlight our own built-in biases or some such crap. (Apparently, I'm a bigotted homophobe who focuses on class separations and takes joy in the misfortune of others. It's amazing what people can do with diagnostic tools these days...)
When one picture was shown, Andrew decided to make his idiocy known to the world and shouted out, "She looks like an extra on 'Newhart'!" I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that the professor and I were the only people in the entire room who had any idea what this guy was talking about. Rule number one concerning "cracking wise" in a group made up of people who are a full generation younger than you: Don't refer to shows that were cancelled before your audience was even born.
He made another joke later, and it fell just as flat. When another picture was shown, he yelled, "The background behind her makes her look like a Branch Davidian!" This time, he got two people to actually snicker, while dozens more quickly leaned to the people next to them and asked in poorly hushed voices, "What the hell is a Branch Davidian?"
Andrew clearly does not understand his audience. But, really, who can blame him? After all, he's the one who's old enough for his shameless, John-Deniston-like flirting with the professor to seem not only inappropriate, but just plain wrong.
posted by Vaughan at
2:28 PM
4 Comments:
John Deniston flirting in general or more specifically with a certain math teacher?
Actually, I had John's flirting with you in mind when I wrote that.
Well, he can't exactly help that, now can he?
Touché, good sir.
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