Whist
very much in holiday mode, a sea kayak tour was booked that within a short
space of time diverted from its intended enjoyable course. The manager of the
hire company enthusiastically decides to recount a joke to forge a connection
with his new clients. He takes a look in my direction and deduces that the joke
may not be for my ears, advising me to block my ears, although he seems
confident that it would tickle the fancy of my two teenage sons and
husband. I jokingly respond that if the
joke was not suited to my ears then perhaps it would not be suited to my
younger son. He enquires about his age, but hearing that he is 15, unhesitatingly proceeds to recite the joke inwardly
to himself, conscientiously ensuring that the joke will be recounted correctly,
as we all know how important a punch line is.
Eager
to deliver, with a huge smile on his face in anticipation for the affirmative
reaction he naturally assumes will follow, he begins telling the joke. It’s almost over as soon as it had begun, so
quickly that one could not imagine that in that one moment there would even
have been enough time to cause offence.
I wish this had been the case, but the words that he so animatedly delivered
encapsulated a heinous subject matter; that of pedophilia. The laugh emitted from my eldest son
suggested that he thought it quite funny, whilst my younger son looked perplexed
and my husband most definitely did not feign any sign of humorous response. I
was quite stunned at what I had heard, but with the sun streaming down on the
kayaks as they beckoned to be let loose into the sea, I decided to let it pass.
Well,
I thought that I had let it pass, but in the moment or two in which I hurriedly
took a convenience break I was consumed by an anger so intense that I knew I
could not stay silent. I decided to
approach the manager, as on so many levels I was disturbed by what had happened. Firstly I could not get over the fact that to
some people this might actually be considered a joke, no matter how black humor
has the propensity to be, and secondly I could not believe that he had deemed
it appropriate to share in the company of my two sons, even though I fleetingly
gave him a small amount of credit for recognizing that it would not be suited
to a mother’s sheltering ears. With metaphoric steam oozing out of every pore
in my body and with a fierceness in my footsteps rarely felt, I marched over to
the manager telling him with all the conviction that my small frame could
muster, that I thought the joke was absolutely disgusting, certainly not
appropriate to share in the presence of kids, or for that matter in anyone’s
presence. Rather than apologize, he responded by saying that he thought it was
a funny joke, and lots of people find it funny, to which in whiplash speed I
told him that I most certainly did not find anything remotely funny in the
‘joke’.
Still
without an apology, he tells me that people also make holocaust jokes, somehow
trying to get me to concede that on some level that made the other joke more
acceptable. At this point I should probably divulge that this holiday is in
fact taking place in Israel, a country that arguably would never have been
brought into existence without the impetus from the seismic horrors of the
holocaust. With temperatures rising, even amidst the strengthening sea breeze,
at the insistence of another client, an apology was reticently and
half-heartedly uttered. I turned my back
on the manager, walking over to my two sons who were putting on their life
jackets tucked away in a corner as far from the controversy as could possibly be. Of course this display of emotion and anger
did not bode well with either boys who have never enjoyed being embroiled in
public scenes, particularly when their mother is at the helm of their
deliverance. My oldest son calmly tells
me that these sorts of jokes are ‘in’ now and beckons me to leave it alone, clearly
eager to leave all this behind and remove himself from the heaviness pervading
the otherwise clear blue sky.
The
kayak trip was a success, other than the legacy of my darkened mood, yet there was still a matter of unsettled finances, which the change from a
chocolate bar was summoned to help solve. I most certainly was not going to
return to the sparring scene, sending instead my husband who returned with a
much more sincere apology and a summary of a discussion that had transpired with staff, who he was told had for much of the past hour been
debating the appropriateness of certain jokes, and in what context they may be
appropriate to share, if at all.
I
understand that humor can be very cathartic and it is a wonderful tool to help rise
above painful moments and situations helping find meaning and validation where all sense of
meaning may have been lost in an often senselessly hostile and cruel society. However I
think it is a particularly sad reflection on society when jokes like the one I heard
today, and hope to forget promptly (as I do with most jokes) are ‘in’. This is one of the reasons that I love
working with laughter as a laughter yoga facilitator and educator. Laughter is universal,
whereas humor can be dangerously subjective. I don’t tell jokes to make people
laugh, and even on the rare occasion that I do, I am mindful that ‘getting’ a
joke depends very much on one’s personal and life experience, the context in
which it is delivered and language and cultural differences. So on this occasion I won’t tell you the one
about the Rabbi and the Priest …
In
love and laughter,
Ros
