Creeping

First of all, I apologize for the tardiness of this post. I could make a plethora of excuses for why it was not posted in time, but in the end what really matters is Go Frogs, right? Right. Glad we got that settled.

As part of an assignment to observe what makes people laugh in situations, I spent part of Easter weekend creeping on people's conversations and observing what made them laugh. For the most part, I was only able to observe the normal things: cognitive shift and what have you. However, at one point after Easter service I noticed an extreme irony that the entire group found hilarious.

For Easter I went to a good friend's house about an hour outside of Fort Worth. His mom was gracious enough to prepare Easter baskets for the whole group of us that went, and even made distinctly different boy and girl baskets. Something that was present in every boy basket was a small pack of cards like Pokémon cards (a suggestion of Ryan, the friend whose house we were staying at). Strangely enough, as all the baskets get handed around, Ryan receives a larger Easter basket than the rest of us (fitting, considering it was his mom and his house). However, Ryan did not receive any cards. The irony of the situation is this: he was probably the only one who really desired the cards! He sat there and asked his mom if she had maybe forgotten him, but all she said was "Oh, I thought you just meant for all the other boys sweetie!" At this, the entire group started laughing, including Ryan. The irony of the situation was such that everyone found the predicament funny, even Ryan who was on the wrong side of the joke. Ryan then stated (in good fun) that he was going to Target later that night to find himself a large deck of cards so that he could easily beat all of us who were laughing with him.

After being in a class studying humor for the better part of the semester, it was nice to see such a sweet irony unfold right in front of me where I was only an observer and not a participant. It was also good to see everyone laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation as well, rather than at any one person. This was at the expense of no one (except maybe a slightly disappointed Ryan), and everyone (including Ryan and his mom) found the situation comical.