Justice For Bad Jokes

Originally posted on Yahoo 360 on Tuesday August 21, 2007 - 11:31am (CDT)

A couple weeks back Terry and I were having a little “debate” about the nature of humor, specifically whether or not bad puns and other really awful jokes ought to be a spankable offense.

There are hazards to spanking a former hippie. Somewhere down the line phrases such as “free speech” and “oppression of brats everywhere” came up. Terry told me he was sure that if “the people” spoke they would be behind him, helping him ensure his right to torment me with bad jokes.

So we held an election. Poor Terry, his people did not come through. Despite his tireless campaigning over the days, the brats did not stand shoulder to shoulder with him. He lost, and was left on his own to face the punishment for criminal puns.

I let him have a day to brood over the lack of loyalty in his brethren (and sisteren) while I decided what punishment fit this crime.

The next evening he was still pouting a bit, but still this whole thing was meant to be playful, so I decided to leave part of it up to chance. I decided on 5 sets of strokes, one set for each of the bad jokes. But how to decide how many strokes? At that point, a storm broke and the roll of thunder overhead brought inspiration; one stroke for each roll of thunder.

Unfortunately for Terry, it stormed for several hours. He sat there waiting as I counted off the rolling booms. When it slowed down he checked the radar only to discover that as one storm was moving out, another was moving in right behind it. “Nooooo,” he wailed.

3 ½ hours later the sky finally cleared, and the official count was 62 rolls of thunder. Poor goodboy. He was in very serious trouble.