I don’t like to think that God gave me the gift of humor, more so a knack for it. If you have ever seen the movie, ‘Airplane’ then you will get my sense of humor and it’s more on display in my office than any other place. “Surely you can’t be serious? I am serious and don’t call my Shirley.” When you come in, it’s not the, in your face comedy, but the kind of humor that you have to notice. You see, I have a good size office but no windows. At first I was bummed, I wanted to see sunlight but when you work in a CSI unit with evidence, you usually find yourself stuck in a basement. So I decided that no windows meant more room to have fun.
Given a cursory glance you’d see my college diploma, police commendations, pictures of my family, trinkets, and newspaper clippings. If you don’t take a more in depth look you will miss it. You will miss my humor and I want nothing more than to make people laugh.
Between a framed policeman’s prayer and my wall calendar is a metal notice sign asking you notice the notice sign. Displayed on a corner table is a nicely framed 4×6 black and white photo of Lt. Frank Drebin from Naked Gun, and dominating another wall is one of those beautiful photographic inspiration posters that I picked up from Despair.com. Check it out. My office is full of latent humor.
I attempt to find humor in most any situation. It’s there if you look hard enough but once you find it you then have to decide if it’s to share, or just tuck it away with a wry smile and keep it your secret. It is what keeps me going. I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, I don’t go to bars. Do I sound dull yet? I use humor. Not to make light of a horror I find myself in the middle of, but help insulate myself from that horror. Isn’t that what we are all trying to do? Insulate ourselves from everything wrong in the world. Whether it’s music, binge watching movies on Netflix (I just binged watched The Expanse on Amazon Prime), playing sports, doing drugs, drinking, writing, drawing, or a myriad of other activities, some positive others destructive. We are all trying to cope.
As a crime scene investigator my humor can seem morbid outside of police circles. I’ve never seen it more true than the time I went to our state crime lab to witness the autopsy of a murder victim. Bodies were all around in different degrees of dissection, and in the middle of all the death, laughter would flitter between the whirring of bone saws. The Laughter rode on a young woman’s voice probably from hearing some witty remark while meticulously disemboweling a corpse. Humor is everywhere. Just make sure you chase it with a strong dose of decorum, especially when standing over a body. We aren’t morbid, really we aren’t. We are normal people trying to do a hard job.
As comedian Grady Nutt said, “Laughter is the hand of God on the shoulder of a troubled world.”
What kind of humor do you enjoy? How do you cope with life’s stressors? I’ve added a link to a comedian I recently ran across. Steve Geyer. I had tears laughing so hard so I thought I’d share. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPnDYieoris&t=692s
The Latent Man 