Joke

I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, because I'd seen them on TV. Stand-up comedians lead very interesting, often funny lives, and they get to talk about them in front of people! Stand-up comedians get to say things you shouldn't say, and they get to play it off like, you know, they were only joking, and also, they are just exploring the ignorance and racism of the culture at large, and also, they are just championing free speech and the First Amendment to the Constitution, which is very important to do!

So, I wrote a joke.

Here it is:

There were two men sitting on a fence. One man said to the other man, "Why are we sitting on a fence?"

The other replied, "We are characters in a joke about two men sitting on a fence."

"And what," the first asked, "does that entail?"

"Well," the second answered, "you will say something, I will reply, you will say something else, and I will respond with something very, very funny."

The first man considered this for a moment, and then asked, "So, in this joke, am I what is commonly referred to as the straight man? Is that right?"

"Why, yes," said the second man. "You are the straight man."

The first thought about this for a long time. His brow furrowed. "No, no, no," he said. "I will not simply be someone for you to react to. I reject that as my lot in life. There is so much more that I could be. I could be a character in a philosophical allegory about existence and its meaninglessness, or perhaps its meaningfulness. Or a protagonist in a short story that perfectly encapsulates the generation into which I was imagined for countless college literature classes. My aspirations are higher than this. Good day to you."

And he jumped down from the fence, ruining the joke forever.

THE END

And since that didn't work, and I couldn't be a stand-up comedian, I decided never to write again, ever, ever again.

***

Hi. So, The Man Who Couldn't Blog will be taking a month-long vacation, as the author will be away and far too busy writing other things to write this thing. And, the absurdist books thing. And, adding to my collaborative novel, Tongue of Bee. But, back eventually.