Making People Laugh These Days Is Like Climbing the Matterhorn

Whatzermatter?  Not funny?  Is humor rising to new heights jokesters must climb?

Ever been to the Swiss Alps?  Felt adventurous enough to go mountain climbing?  

Well, if you’re planning to be funny, you’d better get yourself some mountaineering boots, take along an ice axe, wear a headlamp and bring plenty of rope!

When it comes to venturing up that humor trail these days, if you have a fear of heights, better think twice!   

During these excessively hot, politically fraught, tariff tough inflationary days, making people laugh can be like climbing the Matterhorn with acrophobia.

Sometimes after you tell a joke, you have to advise your solemn, humorously asleep listener that what they just heard was meant to be funny.  Was intended to amuse, not make them snooze. 

“That, my friend, was a joke!”   You smile as best you can, then with all your might, you demonstrate what it’s like to laugh. When then comes more puzzled looks!  Ugh, you’ve bombed!  Fallen off the cliff.

So let me now test YOUR sense of humor.  Let’s gauge your amusement altitude, see to what heights humor must go to reach your steely, half asleep funny bone.  

Here’s a joke I told the other day to the staff at a doctor’s office. I’ll use it in an artificial intelligence way to test your response, to measure what’s far more important than your hemoglobin or blood sugar levels--your humor level!

Ready, get set, here’s a skit starring Jane and her boyfriend Clark (Kent?):

Jane: My doctor Kimmel, he's so funny. 

Clark: Oh?

Jane: Oh yes, he's a riot. Just like Jimmy Kimmel, he keeps me in stitches!

Clark: Oh, he's a dermatologist!   (uproarious laughter!)

Hello!  Are you still there?  The humor meter reads zero.  Are you still with me?  Did a dermatologist ever leave you in stitches?  That’s your cue to laugh out loud!