Wither The Comedy Historians?

In real life, I’m considered to be hilariously entertaining. Or I would be if anybody understood what I was talking about 90% of the time. Here’s two killer examples:

1. As part of my responsibility for the local Friends of the Library, I recently opened a post office box. You can choose the size of the box but not the number or the location. Imagine how happy I was to be assigned to box number 549. *pause for reaction* I thought everyone, if they didn’t immediately outright bust out into a Junior Samples imitation, would at least smile. Even when I explain it to people, they just look back at me and blink. Come on, people.

 

2. We use a pool blanket in the cooler months here at the Florida-Georgia line. It keeps the heat in so we can swim when the air temp is reasonable, thus extending swim season by two months on each end. At first, we tried to manually wrangle it from a loose pile at the end of the pool. It was a two-man job and a big hassle that only lasted about a week.  Then we invested in a long reel to smoothly put it on and take it off . This was a big improvement and made it a reasonable thing for one person to do it but still wasn’t the ideal process. There was a lot of walking back and forth to adjust it if you tried to do it alone. So my engineer husband got some tow rope and grommets and put them at each end of the blanket and life was tremendously improved. No waiting for a partner to make the job easy, falls into place without a lot of fuss and hilariously entertaining.

What?, you say*.

Yes. Every time one of us walks along the edge of the pool using the rope to guide the forward movement of the blanket, I sing Erie Canal. Out loud. I can’t help it. It’s so so funny and yet NO ONE EVER THINKS SO BUT ME.

I don’t think this is an age gap thing as much as it’s a unfamiliarity with American trivia. Not that the Erie Canal itself was trivial.  I guess I mean head of of stuff unnecessary for modern life.

The failure of others to be able to immediately recall  the lyrics and tune is a big disappointment to me. Where are my people? Why did I have to be the one to stage this particular comedy? Why must I continue to perform this gem for an audience of one (myself)? The only comfort in this entire exercise is that at least I appreciate myself.

The comparison is especially effective as the blanket moves near the end of the pool and you have to hold both ropes to gee and haw it into final placement.  Sadly, my model refused to pose as a mule skinner for this shot. Maybe another time. 

 

* This is another  bit of absolute hilarity that you would have had to be in a certain time and place to understand how easily I can amuse myself.)