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.
1 comment:
What a sad and utterly believable story. He sounds a complete arse, but not a rare breed. Whilst there's sometimes an embargo on mentioning weight in front of heavy people (though not always), it's often 'open season' where thin ones are concerned. Poor woman.
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