Comedy is…

Some people in this town spend a career trying to finish the above sentence, but when I realized the smoke had sufficiently cleared such that I felt safe venturing out for lunch this morning, but decided to do so early enough to avoid ridiculously high temperatures that are on tap for this afternoon (90’s in November, anyone?), and found myself arriving at Fatburger before their dining room was open for the day and then being motioned over to place my order at the drive-thru window.

So here it is: Comedy is walking up to a drive-thru and placing an order with a cashier who doesn’t speak English or any apparently any other human language. I ordered a grilled chicken sandwich combo, which seemed to go well enough until she presented me with my bag of food and I promptly asked for a fork and knife (I know, some folks would consider the fact that I eat a chicken sandwich with a fork and knife to be comedic in its own right). But when I ask for the fork and knife, the casher proceeds to simply throw some more ketchup into my bag. I ask again for a “fork and knife” but she looks at me and says “more ketchup?” as I try not to start laughing. Come on, even I don’t mumble that badly. How can I properly convey what I mean to her? “Silverware,” I say. She responds “ah, spoon!” and then hands me, stunningly enough, a fork and a knife.

There you have it, gang. In a nutshell, comedy is placing an order with someone who thinks “fork and knife” means “more ketchup” and who thinks “silverware” means “spoon” and in turn thinks “spoon” means “fork and knife.” If she’d spoken Spanish I could have worked with her, but this wasn’t a language thing. She was from another planet, I think. As if walking up to a drive-thru window wasn’t absurd enough of a backdrop to begin with.

I love it. Every laughing minute of it. This whole town is just a little bit insane, and I fit right in. If you can’t laugh at the above, what can you laugh at? I shall miss this town while I’m gone for the holidays. But hey, no worries. It’s not that difficult to find insanity, and therefore insane comedy, no matter where you roam.