The Unfunny House

I know, I know. It's been, like, three whole days already and I haven't posted. I'm starting to twitch, too. But I can explain.

See -- Joe is out of town, so Grandma and I are holding down the fort. Holding down the fort looks alot like this:

Cute, but a little boring. Sigh.

For some reason, when Joe's gone, the fun is just sucked right out of the house with him. This is counterintuitive, I know -- I'm the fun one, right? Why should Joe being gone matter? But it does. It matters.



When Joe's not around, we hang Star Wars characters from fishing poles . . .



and tease the dog . . .



. . . and the toddler.

But it's still not as fun as it would have been if Joe were home.

It's not really that Joe has a higher standard for humor -- on our second date we went to see Wayne's World and Joe laughed so hard he cried ("Good to know" I thought). But it took me years and years to figure out how to make him laugh -- see, in the seven years we were married before Casey was born, he never laughed at my jokes. Really. Never. We would have conversations like this:

FF: Why don't you laugh at my jokes?

Joe: I do.

FF: No you don't.

(Who needs therapy when you can work your own problems out with this type of heartfelt dialogue?)

But once Casey was born and started with the disgusting sounds in his diaper, Joe started laughing. It's not that Joe is really into potty humor (he's still going to leave a comment about how insulted he is that I implied to all the world that the only things he laughs at are flatulence and burping), he just thinks the kids do and say funny things (though he does laugh really hard at flatulence) (not mine, though, cause I never do that, no matter what he says in the comments. I'm a lady). So I know whenever I want to hear Joe laugh, all I have to do is repeat some crazy thing Casey said in the car on the way home from school and he'll crack up. Just a funny look on Mace's face will get Joe going. And if Joe's laughing, all is right with the world.

Casey is six now, so I've been listening to Joe laugh for six years. When he's not home and laughing at the kids with me, our house is cute, but a little boring. Other people's basic needs are food and shelter. Mine are food, shelter and giggling. This does not bode well for our retirement years, I know.

Wait. I forgot there would be grandchildren. I hear that grandchildren are even funnier than children.

So I'll be fine.

We'll be fine.

So I'm sorry, our house is not going to be funny again until this time next week. I will try not to bring you to tears in the meantime.