Learning Experience #2: Humor in Action

Date of Occurrence: April 19th

Occasionally, I tend to study in a room with other people in the BLUU for a few hours. This time, I was joined by two Lit and Civ II veterans, Jared and Noah, and we began discussing our blogs, in addition to various other topics. There were two other students in the room that I met for the first time. So, as our discussion and distracting conversations progressed more and more off-topic, I began to read Jared's old blog posts and poking fun at him for some of them. He suggested I read one titled "The Floating Ticket", which I did and found the most humor in an unexpected part of the story.

While the story was entertaining, I was most amused by the line that reads "There’s not much more fun than belting “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” on the highway and being able to joke with friends about their ridiculously poor taste in women." Disregarding the alarming part where 20-something year old males sing Disney songs in the car, I was curious why he thought one of his friends had ridiculously poor taste in women and who it was. He mentioned the name and one of the other students in the room had a quizzical look on her face at the mention of the male's name. The rationale for his poor taste in women is irrelevant, as the female student quickly said "Hey! I'm going a formal with him next week!". I found this encounter hilarious as it seemed like such an off-chance and conditional scenario that initially came off as negative humor. The female student was friends with Jared and was not offended, but this situation emphasized the importance of proper time and place for the successful delivery of humor.