Not so funny

[Salka]

Usually when I'm angry, or worried about something, I try to turn it in to a funny thread. Man, I'm just trying to think of funny things to say right now. And I can't, so I'll just start with some slapstick humour. That's always a good substitute for real humour. Man, maybe I should just keep writing slapstick humour and I'll never have a thread fall flat on it's face again!

Let's try that right now!

I was shopping in The Bookshop today, and it was getting late, but I was getting some school provisions, when I fell over and landed on my ass in front of everybody, for absolutely no good reason. I just miscalculated the distance between my foot and the ground, and stepped too hard, and leg buckled under me and I fell. And everybody looked at me. Some people pretended not to, and children just stared blatantly. Bastards. Like kids can talk; they're always falling over.

Anyway, while I was poring over different thicknesses of paper in the art section, I vaguely heard somebody saying "fuck off!" at which point I automatically spun around, smacked my head off a book display and yelped, "stop talking to your Mom like that, Oscar!" while screwing my eyes shut in an attempt to stop the excrutiating pain to my forehead. "He's just being a difficult teenager," I added, as my vision blacked out like a broken TV. I grasped around blindly for my Mom's shoulder. "Just ignore him," I continued.

My vision returned and I humbly let go of the complete stranger I'd just grabbed, and then turn to my Mom. Only Mom was walking down the stairs, and called back up, "I'm going back to the car. Don't forget the pictures." I gave Oscar a reproachful look, but he didn't notice because he'd just given himself a million slapstick-style papercuts on 300gsm Paper, and was dancing around howling and holding his wrists.

About five minutes later, after having bought everything I needed, I made my way across town to the Tesco Carpark where I knew Mom had parked the car. Of course, I walked face first into the door and made this comical kind of 'oof' sound as my nose cracked off the glass. And then, as I was walking outside, a bucket just fell out of the sky and landed on my head and got stuck, and I danced around hilariously for about two minutes trying to get it off and yelling things like, "I'll get you! I'll get you for this, you pesky kid!" But, after that, I was on my way to the Carpark. Oh, by the way, I should mention at this point that the pictures she was talking about us carrying? Yeah. Them. What she meant to say was, "an entire SACK full of HEAVY PICTURE FRAMES".

Nothing ever goes like it's supposed to for me. Some point, I think it was right after we walked past the Nightclubs, that a group of guys started following us closely. The road to the Carpark in Tesco is narrow and there are no houses or anything... the land around it is being built on but for now there's just a wide expanse of nothing, and the road has a fifteen foot wooden construction wall on either side. Anyway, partly for the slapstick humour element and partly because I'm dumb and like to take narrow, unlit roads when I'm being followed, I of course took the road. I was also aware my Mom was waiting for us in the car, so yeah, I took the shortcut.

Anyhoo, the guys started walking either side of me, as guys very often do. I'd like you to reread the sentence highlighted in bold because it makes me look so cool and popular. You'd think I'd be a little cooler about guys walking either side of me, in fact, because I'm so used to guys walking either side of me. But these guys smelled, and they didn't seem as friendly as most guys I know walking side-by-side with me, so I grabbed Oscar's arm and started leading him away. And then some asshole grabbed my school sweater, so I turned around and pushed him in the chest, like girls do when you offend their honour. Or was I supposed to slap him in the face? I forget. Well, I did that whole "what's yo problem, yo asshole momma yo yo, yo?" thing that rappers do, sort of, and look really cool and imposing when they're doing it, only I did it all wrong and looked like a chicken having a heart attack. And then there was this sort of silence, where they glanced awkwardly at each other, and I used this moment of confusion I had totally created on purpose to grab Oscar and LEG IT to Tesco, where there were people and lights, and phones. They started cursing after us, but I'm not sure if they followed us because I was too busy screaming and also, I couldn't turn my neck as I was lying on it funny this morning and now it hurts.

"Mom'll save us!" I declared, as we burst through the entrance to the car park. I forgot that those barrier things to stop the cars were down, and I ran straight into one of them, and that's not even something I made up for slapstick humour. THEN I REALLY felt dumb. But we didn't stop running. We ran around the entire carpark, twice (it's not very big). And then we stopped outside the door to Tesco and looked confused.

"Mom'll save us!" I repeated, and waited for about three seconds for Mom to appear in her shiny, silver, superhero car, with wings.

"This is full of shit," Oscar muttered, "I didn't come out here to be screwed over by a bunch of bastards from St Pauls. If I see those bastards again, I'll break their faces open on my kneecaps. EEK, HERE THEY COME," he screamed shrilly, pointing furiously. They were in fact loitering around the end of the carpark. They hadn't seen us, but we ran inside anyway, and stood gasping for breath in store lobby area (man, I know it's not called a lobby area, okay? I just don't know what else it might be called).

I hadn't got my cel phone on me, so I dashed over to the public phone. "Mom'll save us!" I said, a little less enthusiastically, as I dialled her number. Twice. And then a third time. And then a bunch more times, but her phone seemed to be turned off. Finally, we sank against the wall in dispair, and then quickly stood back up again as the manager walked past.

"I'm going to pee myself!" Oscar thought, probably.

For twenty minutes, we cowered, shivering and scared, in Tesco. We didn't want to go outside. I only had 50c left, because each time you try to phone somebody, even if it fails the machine eats your money.

It was dark outside. Tesco stays open because it's a big supermarket, but most of the stores in town were closed. The bank was closed. I didn't have my bank card on me for an ATM, I had no money left, and I didn't have my cel phone. I didn't know anybody living within walking distance of where I was. I had no way of getting anywhere. Reluctant to give up my last fifty cent on the THIEVING phone, I tried once more to ring my Mom. To my delight, she picked up.

"Hello? Mom?! Where are you?!"

"I'm three quarters of the way home. I'll have to phone you back, I'm driving."

"NO! I'm on a payphone! WAIT!... Uh... you're half way home?"

I should mention at this point I live 15 miles from town.

"Yeah," she replied happily.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, where I waited for her to say something like, "JUST JOKING!!! HAHA, YOU'RE DUMB! I'm just behind you!" or "YOU'VE BEEN FRAMED! This is just a TV show and you've just been filmed being an IDIOT!!!", but for about twenty seconds nobody said anything like that, so I just stammered, "Uh... really?"

"Yeah." She said.

"Do... do you know that I have no money? And no ATM card? And... and no phone to call anybody? And this is the last of my money? And it's dark? And cold? And I want to go home?"

"Well, you'd better find some way of getting home then," she replied. "Oh, hang on, dodgy road coming up. I'll call you later."

So in the end I ran out of money, my Mom never came in and picked us up because she was annoyed with Oscar, although I'd done nothing wrong, and the guys that were following us came in, murdered us all and we died. And then we froze to death, and died again. So all in all we died twice, and Mom didn't even care. And she never even apologized. She has a really crap sense of humour. Crap and dumb, just like payphones and groups of guys that walk too close.

That was a great story. Here's another story; I was sitting in the cloakroom today, and I was biting an apple, when this one girl, sitting among her group of friends, said, "YOU KNOW WHEN YOU'RE GIVING SOMEBODY A BLOWJOB, RIGHT?!?" and I bit the apple too hard, and also bit my tongue, and then started choking, but I was too busy laughing to try and remove the apple segment from my windpipe. And then she kept on and on talking to her friends, who were all like, "Hmm, yeah, uh huh, totally," and she was all, "AND I'M ALL LIKE, GACK!! GACK!!! BECAUSE IT'S HALFWAY DOWN MY NECK, LIKE," and this other girl is all like, "When they put their hands on my head to push me down on them, I'm just like 'fuck off or suck your OWN dick!'"

And while we rolled around the other end of the room in silent, painful laughter, clutching our sides with tears streaming down our faces, somebody else fainted. She's 17 and apparently, her parents never told her about the birds and the bees. She had to spend the rest of the day First Aid, just lying down with a wet towel on her head, because somebody said 'blowjob', and now she's gone to hospital. It's freakin' hilarious. I hope she doesn't die.

[Salka]

Oh, I wish I'd added 'bud-dum-TSH!!!' to the end of the first paragraph, because then it would look like I'd totally meant to make that pun, and that it was clever writing, and then I'd look cleverer and that would pretty much rule.

[shbazjinkens]

While I was reading this, laughing hysterically, my new roomate (who is a Moroccan man here working on his Ph.D.) comically ran in with his backpack and shouted, "Ross! I'm going to IHOP!" and I guess he thought my laughter was happiness to see him or something, because he was also laughing jovially, then just like that, he ran back out, in case his friends were short tempered enough to leave him here and go to IHOP without him.

I guess you would have had to be here.

[lailoken]

sounds like a humorous take on a pretty lousy evening, yuff... your mom SHOULD care more!

the cloakroomstuff tho! NICE

[Salka]

EPILOGUE

It was a bright, cold, sharp January morning as I stretched my legs, and then emmediately recoiled in agony as my leg was consumed with a cramp. "Motherfucker!" I hissed, grabbing my leg and falling sideways out of the bed.

The shrill 'bleep bleep bleep' of my cel phone recieving an SMS had awoken me, only since I have a polyphonic phone it was actually more like a 'Badadum-TSH-budadumdum-TSHHH! Dum Tshhh tshhh dum badum dum pachoiwwww! Dagga ding ding doo, batta batta doo da di dum ba baddi bum dum blum rum badadum-TSHH TSHH! Fugadeebop, TSHHH!"

I opened my inbox and read the SMS.

sry salks, ddnt no u hd

no mny wldnt hv lft u in

twn F i hd scr jst rlly

pss' me ff. Sry.

"What does it say?" Oscar asked.

"Don't know. Think it's Welsh. What the fuck are you doing in my room?" I added in a low roar, because I'm not a morning person and I'd only had one hour of sleep.

"I unfroze the taps and put on the kettle." He said mysteriously, as though he was saying something mystical and interesting.

I went downstairs to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee, and then went to put the kettle back on again.

"That will be the last cup of coffee you have." Oscar said, in a creepy, monotonous voice.

I felt a cold shiver down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Placing one hand on the tap, I turned slowly around to face him.

"Why?" I whispered. There was a silence. I turned the tap. Nothing happened. There was a dry, coughing sound from the pipe.

"They're doing roadworks and hit the water supply." Oscar said brightly.

Motherfuckers!!!

[ysbreker]

Ok. I'm dead serious now: get an editor and write a damn book! cause this is too damn good for this simple forum! seriously. Do more with this material or get trep to do it for you or something...

[Salka]

I think I secetly fear rejection letters.

Also, they said that there's no demographic for my work to fit in to. They said they can't market it to kids because I keep saying 'motherfuckers' 'bastard' 'fuck' and 'snop', and they can't market it to adults because it's not stimulating or thought provoking. Besides that, since over half the stories I tell are of real, easily identifiable people and places, I'd get the ass sued off me, lose all my profits and dignity, and then they'd ban me from America for ten years. And possibly France.

Pfft. Who do they think they are? If I ever meet those guys, I'll snop the face off them.

Besides, then you guys would be able to take me to court for a slice of the profits because you 'made me' do it, and after that all of the administrators of Idle Thumbs would do exactly the same because they 'hosted my material' for four years.

Bastards. I'll snop the faces off them.

[ysbreker]

I'm not really up to date with street slang I think, what does 'snop' mean?

[Salka]

Unlike any other word in the English language, Snop is completely made-up, and also brand spanking new (24 hours old!)

I'm going to try and make people use it. It can probably be used in a lot of different contexts... things like 'I'll snop the face off him!' as in a mixture between a karate chop and a slap, and maybe a pair of scissors. I don't know. You could also say, 'Snoppy little bitch' or 'Give her a good snop with the back of your hand' 'I'll snop the motherfucker!!!' ect.

And the plus of using a word like Snop, is that not only will you be fashionable and popular, but it sounds cool. Remember in FF8, when that annoying snoppy little bitch tried to make everybody catch on to the word 'Bayooka!' or something? Well, fuck that. If I want a foul word to use, I want it NOW, not five seconds later when I'm finished pronouncing it. Snop is easy to remember, sticks in your mind, and most importantly, it's short and sweet.

[Wormsie]

I'd use "fuck" instead. You know, 'I'll fuck the face off him!', 'Fucking little bitch', 'Give her a good fuck with the back of your hand', 'I'll fuck the motherfucker!!!' ...

Maybe not. Snop, yeah.

[Salka]

I'll snop the face off you, Deadworm.

[Marek]

How about Snop Doggy Dog?

[Salka]

Wow, Marek, that was so lame. That was so, so incredibly lame.

I'll snop Snoop Doggy Dog in the freakin' face no problem, but he can't take MY word and claim it as his own, because it's mine. You can use it though, if you like.

It might make you seem cooler and more popular.

[Salka]

I'll snop the face off my Mom if she doesn't apologise soon...

[Nick]

If no other word in the English language was made up, how did they come to be?

Also I like rip, telling people that you'll rip their face off often makes them a little less confident.

[shbazjinkens]

Speaking of made up words, I read on bash.org that someone wanted to use "baby" as a unit of volume measurement. This would work as such:

That microwave is easily a five baby unit.

"Can you pick up trash bags for the kitchen?"

"What size?"

"Oh about a 10 baby bag will do."

I think it's brilliant.

[Jake]

Like that sorta.

[Marek]

I am here to say that eating ice cubes makes me feel very masculine, because it feels like I'm eating glass.

Bye.

P.S. I haven't read anything in this thread apart from the bit about snop.

[Salka]

Well, I'm glad, because now it'll stick in your brain better, without having to be clogged up with all that other information.

And your contribution was excellent.

[loonyboi]

Ok. I'm dead serious now: get an editor and write a damn book! cause this is too damn good for this simple forum! seriously. Do more with this material or get trep to do it for you or something...

A book's too "old fashioned."

From what I "understand" the "kids" today are into these things called "web logs" or something.

Start one of those.

Just be sure to put an RSS feed on it. I'm much too lazy to actually manually look for stuff anymore. I prefer to let my automated software wait on me hand and foot.

[Erwin_Br]

She already has one. Or two.

I wonder if it's ever being updated.

--Erwin

[Nick]

A book's too "old fashioned."

From what I "understand" the "kids" today are into these things called "web logs" or something.

Start one of those.

Just be sure to put an RSS feed on it. I'm much too lazy to actually manually look for stuff anymore. I prefer to let my automated software wait on me hand and foot.

Like this one? Or is that something completely different?

[loonyboi]

Like this one? Or is that something completely different?

Like that. Only with, you know, updates and stuff.