Timing Is Everything

A few weeks ago, I was nosing around at a local discount CD shop, looking for deals (preferably of the non-Kelly Clarkson kind). I was just about to make a decision between Dave Matthews’ Under the Table and Waning and Nickelback’s Things That Sound Like Suck, when I spotted him behind the counter, running the cash register.

There he was. Late teens, maybe very early twenties. Pale skin. Badly dyed hair. On his gaunt and bony frame he had draped various items of black clothing: a trench coat, a scarf, a t-shirt, loose-fitting jeans with a shiny studded belt. On his wrists he wore thick leather bands, dotted with spikes. His eyelids were encircled with dark eye liner, and around his throat he was wearing a spiked dog collar. His face was covered in numberless piercings, because – I assume – his skull-flesh had at one point become detached and had fallen to the ground, thus forcing him to take appropriate corrective steps by pinning it back on.

His appearance – particularly the spikes and dog collar – reminded me of a joke I once heard, so I decided to lay it on him. Young people enjoy a good joke, right? Why not extend a bit of conviviality, perhaps brighten his day a bit?

I approached the counter, grinning, and waded right into the set-up: “I don’t know how to say this, but … several years ago when I was a reckless young man still in the business of sowing my wild oats, I went to a keg party and got severely drunk.”

He stared, blankly.

Undeterred, I continued: “Yes, well, anyway, in my fully inebriated condition that night, I had carnal relations with a Doberman Pinscher.”

His least metal-laden eyebrow arched upward. Emboldened, I plowed right into the punchline: “I was just noticing your spikes and collar, and … well … I think you might be my son.”

(Silence)

His eyes narrowed. He stared at me and, with apathy thickly slathered over every syllable, said, “Yeah, that’s really f***ing funny.”

So I lunged over the counter, grabbed his eyebrow-ring, jerked his face close to mine, and shouted into his ear, “No, you stupid dick, I’m being serious here, I’ve been looking for you for years – and this is how you treat your father on the day of our long-awaited reunion?! HUH?!?!?! ANSWER ME!!!!”

I didn’t expect him to start bawling like a baby … I guess I just don’t know how to tell a joke. Timing is everything.

–Jacob Michael
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