Seeing the Silver Lining

I don't know how it came up, but yesterday me brother Phil and I were talking about the often horrible diseases which afflict the human race. "Did you know that if you contract the Ebola virus or the bubonic plague but survive, you're immune to them afterwards?" he was telling me.

"Really?" I responded. "They'd be terrible to suffer through. But good, though, that if you get them you can't get them again."

Phil replied, wit just rolling off his tongue, "Well, you don't get them again if you die either."

He's always looking for the bright side.

Churchillianisms

 Ah, Winston. You could turn a phrase. In his more serious hours the great British Prime Minister could wax eloquent in inspiring ways. His Their Finest Hour speech is well remembered. 

Yet he was also known for his wit. A famous example was when Lady Astor told him condescendingly, "Mr. Churchill, if you were my husband I should poison your tea." 

He replied, "Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it."

I came across a line yesterday said (supposedly) by Churchill, "The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list."

Ah, Winston.

I wasn't going to crack this joke.

I wasn't going to crack this joke. I had indeed vowed, in the silence of my own mind, not to make the quip. In fact, I had put it in yesterday's blog but edited it out, wanting to keep that missive reasonably happy go lucky and vaguely wistful in tone. But I like the then edited remark too much not to share it after all.

If I may pontificate, not that any potential negative reply to that not actual request for an affirmative answer would stop me, I believe it is objectively funny. IF, and I mean this, if you have a sense of humor and are not too full of yourself. I say that last part because I have found there are folks out there who can't laugh at themselves. What they find important is far too critical for wit, dammit.

So here you are: and I've offered enough of a trigger warning that it's on you if you read it and are offended.

April brings out the best in sports for me. Baseball begins, while the Masters golf tournament arrives the second week of the month. The only thing that would make it better is if they moved the Masters from Georgia to Colorado.

That is objectively witty and a bit biting. But a lot of good humor has a grain of reality within it, don't you think?

Sharp objects

As I drove along Grand River Avenue outside of Detroit the other day, I saw a tool shop. It had a large sign in front which announced proudly, 'We sharpen anything!'

Really, thought I. How about, ahem, my wit?

I am far too proud of that one.