when does a joke stop being funny?

Is it when you've heard it a million times? Is it when the subject of the joke stopped finding it funny? What if the joke never was funny in the first place but so shocking you laughed at it because you didn't know what else to do?

Lets call the joker Dave and the subject of the joke Ash. Ash joins the gym with a colleague, the only other female in the office. Ash sticks at it, Georgie gives up after a month. Ash loses weight, doesn't stop when others think she should've done, she keeps going, the kick when ribs protude through flesh and hip bones stick out visibly under clothes its a medal, a medal she walks around with, she knows she's achieved something, she sees it in the mirror every time she looks at her face and sees the hollow shapes under her cheekbones. The congratulations stop, people change their tune, they plead Ash to stop exercising, to start eating, they want her to change. Ash thinks the stress on her loved one is too much and so she must seek help, for him. In the mean time Dave, Ash's boss, the office joker has taken much delight in ribbing her for her gym habits, its all in good humour, Ash lets it wash over her, water off a duck's back. She goes to the doctor, pleads for help, weeps about her life falling apart, the doctor sends her to outpatient appointments with a team who know what they're doing. It's not right for Ash but she tried and she knows she did, she tried so hard but it just wasn't right. Meanwhile, back in the office a photograph of a skeleton is taken, its wearing medals, it is printed off "Slimmer of the Year" awarded to Ash. Shocking but like I say, you laugh it off, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. Bobby, thats what Dave christens Ash as in Bobby Sands. You see, Dave is so hilarious, his secretary's mental illness is being dealt with in such a sensitive manner. But you laugh it off, what else can you do?

Ash starts to get a slight handle on her issues, she puts on a little weight, she's not happy about these pounds that are there, like a dead weight around her neck, or rather her waist. People think they're saying the right thing, they tell her she looks so much better now she's put on weight. Ash doesn't hear all of this, she hears the weight comment, she longs to not have to breathe in to see the ribs. She is ever more conscious of the weight. Then Dave sends her an email, it made him think of her, its a big big big guy, 60stone, he is wearing a t-shirt it says "I beat anorexia" across his sizeable chest. Ash wants to cry. She mentions the email the next day, he starts up his hysterical laughter, proclaiming how funny it was and didn't she agree? She tells him it made her feel bad, like he was commenting on her weight gain, he hadn't noticed the weight gain, she feels like an idiot, she says it felt like he was calling her a big fat cow, he says he wasn't. Later she apologises to Dave, she shouldn't have apologised but thats just the kind of girl she is, she doesn't want an atmosphere in the office, he tells her he hadn't realised she'd be so sensitive.

Dave hadn't realised the office anorexic would be so sensitive....

At what point did that joke become unfunny? I just don't know.

third time lucky

i am surprised, i have had the cockles of my little heart warmed three times this week, twice in one day. how lovely it is to know people have read this blog. admittedly i am cringing at the things i have written here, i think i forgot that it was published, how when i am clicking 'publish post' at the end of each rant i don't know but there you go, lacking in common sense as ever it seems. didn't once occur to me that perhaps it would be read never mind that people would see fit to comment, but it has really made me smile and that is some task, i can tell you.

so here's to you ISBW and Valentine Suicide. thank you. no really, i mean that from the bottom of a less cold heart.

xx

just an after thought, now i have the knowledge that this may one day be read maybe i'll start to punctuate and use capitals, be a little less lazy. maybe....

the kindness of strangers part 2

so i bought mr t a chainsaw today, he's always wanted one so he says. i had to walk about 2 miles with the 10kg awkwardly shaped box, i knew it would be a hassle before i'd even left the shop. i tripped over the wheel of a pram being pushed by a guy who was trying to escape, i turned to apologise and explain i couldn't see a thing over the box.... i turned back and promptly swung the top end of the box into the guy's face almost taking him out (i didn't). he was very patient, i insisted he left the shop before i did, purely on the basis that i could do him no more harm if he made his escape first.

then i was continuing the hunt for pyjamas, held a door open with my bum for a lady with a pram, partly because it was a door i'd have had to pull open and that was a nigh on impossible task with a bloody big box occupying both arms. she was grateful, i was grateful, it was fine. i did, however, get stuck in the door trying to get out of the shop but we'll gloss over that. this was all while two women stood near to the door, blinkers firmly in place, ignoring the struggle both i and the lady with the pram were involved in.

dropped my ipod halfway back to the office, a few metres away from a fire escape so i kicked it along the floor intending to rest the chainsaw on the stairs and retrieve the already battered ipod (its old and has bounced along many a road accidentally). a man coming towards me said "it's ok, i'll get it for you" i am ashamed to admit a fleeting thought that he might steal it sprang to mind then i realised that some people are lovely and genuine and would simply place the ipod on top of the box for me, which is exactly what he did.

my heart has been warmed for the second time this week. and that mr t had better bloody well like his present, my arms are killing me.

the kindness of strangers

this morning on the bus i half listened to a conversation a boy was having with the man sitting next to him. they didn't know each other but the elderly man sat and listened with apparent interest, even asked questions, while the boy next to him who usually pushes people out of the way so he can sit on the one seat on its own right by the driver told him about computer games and consoles. it was quite sweet really, i am inherently southern in my attitude to talking to strangers on the bus, i just don't think its right but it was nice to listen to this conversation and to know that there are some people with the patience to talk to others, others who have some kind of learning difficulty. i say that not in a derogatory sense, i genuinely think he has one, i see the signs, he reminds me a little of my brother and it breaks my heart to think that my brother might be like him but that people might ignore him as i probably would, or at least just give a polite answer and get on with my book. i am glad there are others out there more considerate than i. perhaps i shall try to do a good deed every day.

overheard on the bus

in the mornings, if i get the bus to work i like to turn off my ipod, partly to give my poor little ears a rest from what would otherwise be a three hour daily assault and also because i err on the side of nosey where other people's conversations are concerned.

this morning between pages of my 49p from superdrug novel (which is turning out to be quite good) i heard this.... "he's still playing darts, yeah man he's really grown as well, he's like 6ft" and then as if this wasn't tall enough, as if the boy in the rigger boots telling his friend in rigger boots was underestimating the height of his dart playing friend (presumably) he added "maybe 6ft 1". i know this is a peculiar thing to be typing here but it just struck as peculiar that that 1 inch can make a difference, it really emphasised for him how much the darts player had grown, it made me wonder just how tall the player had been before.

and then i went back to a novel about a dead donkey.

end of year moaning

here's to 2009, may it be a happy one. let's face it, it couldn't be all that much worse than 2008. i don't know quite why i feel that 2008 was so horrible, it just was, perhaps there were a lot of lovely things which happened but i just can't remember them. i remember the shitty things that happened, my eating disorder which i'm clearly not over because i actually want it back, or at least i want back the motivation i had, the motivation to not eat at all times and to exercise to excess, i am totally the opposite to that right now, i am sitting here in trousers that are tight, trousers which a few months ago were too big. fucking idiot, thats what i am, i just can't help but place so much importance, so much, for want of a better word, weight on the fact that my waist is no longer 24inches. i want it to be. grrrrrrrrrr. anyway there was that, there were the many arguments, presumably caused by the issue of my desparation to keep my waist low, not that the measurement was anything that really concerned me, the issue was the weight, the stones, the pounds, the ounces, the whatever is less than an ounce which made up every bit of fat i was so keen to get rid of, i still am truth be told.

anyway there was the death of mr t's grandmother, the first death in his family that he's known. the first death in his family since we got together 9 years ago. his turn to be the one needing a hug because someone wasn't there anymore. i've had three in the 9 years we've been together, he's on his first. its shit, i feel really sorry for him, they were so close and now it just looks like mr t's parents are rinsing the old woman for all she was worth now she's dead. an eleven grand kitchen and a personalised number plate later and his dad is being the hero, helping out to pay for the new engine mr t needs. he's revelling in it, he loves it, telling him not to worry about the money, he'll pay. yeah he'll pay with what's left of his dead mother's fortune. maybe i'm just a jealous hateful little cow who wishes she had a new kitchen, a grand's worth of kitchen would do me just nicely.

then there was the death of mr t's uncle. the funeral was this year, he died too close to xmas to have it last year i assume. mr t didn't go, he feels bad for not going, i don't know why he didn't, he liked his uncle, he just chose not to go to his funeral. it was so sad, a box of biscuits from his aunt and uncle for xmas, the gift tag signed from "uncle eric and aunty di" aunty di would have written this before her husband died, right before xmas. heartbreaking, like seeing an old person's handwriting on a card, that always makes me want to weep, i don't know why, i guess its because you don't think how old some of your relatives are not really, not until you see the card wishing you a merry christmas or a happy birthday in their shakily formed letters.

so there you go, two deaths, an eating disorder and the potential to never make the nine year anniversary. well what a year.

on the plus side my friend got married at the beginning of the year, that was nice even if i was touched with a pang of jealousy. i know i can't afford the wedding i'd like though so i know its not happening just yet. oh and mr t made it to our 9 year anniversary which if i'm honest was a surprise really, i've been waiting for years for him to realise how much he deserves and how little of that i give to him but thankfully he hasn't noticed, not yet. oh and i had a lovely time in london over the summer, a couple of days strolling round on my own did me a lot of good, it has to be said. wouldn't mind a repeat performance in the very near future, its taken a week and a half off work for me to come to the conclusion that i am just not cut out for this working lark, i am much better suited to days on the couch, wrapped in a duvet eating quality streets for breakfast. just need to get working on that lottery win and it'll be fine.