I feel like a bad father. See, my son, thinks he’s really funny. And to be brutally honest, most of the time, he’s not. I’m not really sure why. It could be his potty humor, or the fact he keeps making weird noises and expecting me to drop to the floor laughing. Usually, I just look at him, with an emotionless face, thinking: Is that all you’ve got?! And I feel bad, because I really want him to be funny, and it hurts me to see him fail so miserably.
I also don’t want to encourage him too much. At least not the unfunny, juvenile material of his repertoire. Once in a while however, something funny escapes him. We laugh. Sometimes even a lot. And knowing that he’d penetrated our hard exterior crust of coldheartedness, he fires off a cascade of backup jokes, that once again fall flat.
I admire his persistence.