Mar. 9,1978  Sense and Nonsense

I love to collect accidental humour, whether it be from radio. T.V. or everyday life. However it sometimes happens that the humour is only in the eye or the ear of the beholder. The other day I found myself chuckling merrily over a statement made by a newscaster on the radio. Seems our government planned on borrowing money from “a broad” to help stabilize our sagging economy.

I repeated the declaration to our resident teen-ager who spoke in a lofty teen-aged, manner. “Yes, that was amusing. Not very funny, but it was amusing.”

I skulked away to my kitchen. Just for that I would not repeat the hilariously distorted version of a popular T.V. commercial I had heard that day. “Betty Quacker’s Snocking Cake” had broken me right up! Teen-agers have no sense of humour .. he would probably be “amused” into complete boredom!

One day I idly noticed a cardboard box that was supposed to be utilized as a toy box for our pre-schooler’s toys. That it was empty was not surprising. The toys it was supposed to house were in their usual places … everywhere! What was surprising was the label on the box… “French Fried Toes”. I have never been an avid fan of French style cookery, and this caption did not whet my appetite for it.

On closer inspection, I could see an address poster had been pasted on the box. It was unobtrusively blocking out some of the letters in the word “Potatoes”. It was the box in which our daughter had shipped our Christmas present to us on the bus. She had sent us an electric deep-fryer!

Yesterday morning I was busily transforming the topsy-turvy, Monday morning look of the house into a semblance of the orderly home I have often desired. The television was blaring away. I vaguely realized a fashion show was being featured, and in fact, was almost over. I was simultaneously sweeping the kitchen floor and removing a mysterious pizza stain from the inside of a cupboard door, when a saccharin sweet voice from television-land reached my ears.

“And now our guest, Juliet, will do the “clothes off” section of the show”. I almost dropped everything to dash into the living room to see the “New Look” Juliet was about to introduce into the fashion industry.

I was detained by another Monday morning mystery.. how did the teddy bear get into the refrigerator? Oh well, accidental humour may not always be that funny….but it is amusing.