My Sense of Humor in a Nutshell

If someone were to ask me to describe my sense of humor with a single graphic, I would most likely offer up this:

Normally, I'd just show the image and let the inherent humor speak for itself, but since I'm holding this picture as some sort of example, I'm going to elaborate more than necessary.

Don't get me wrong: it's tragic. What the third girl says is horribly sad. In fact, in this case, I'd argue that it's impossible to laugh without first quickly feeling the pain. After the first two materialistic responses, you get lulled into such a sense of triviality that the final answer comes like a firm punch to the gut. And that shock, I'd contend, is hilarious.

Sure, I have an inappropriate sense of humor, but it's not like I'd just laugh at someone's parents being dead in another context. (Not many, anyway.) But as someone who has worked on newspapers before, I can say that whoever laid out this space-waster (let's face it, this piece is hardly hitting journalism) is an idiot.

I love how the first two respondents now look like total assholes, even though if you were to omit the third person, most people would concede that their answers were sensible, if not full on cosign to them. I'd also imagine that if the other people had been privy to the last girl's answer, they'd think of something more thoughtful to say.

To get back to the topic of my sense of humor, I find the following things funny: social critique, awkward discomfort, and unexpected punch lines. But more than anything, this snippet is a taste of reality. And reality is quite funny.