High Brow Humor

During the twelve years and nine months that I was the sole female resident of the house, I learned quite a bit about the nature of men and boys. One observation was reinforced this weekend: male humor is unlike female humor.


A major moment of enlightenment came many years ago while hiking the trails of Yosemite National Park. Tim was walking next to me and 18-month-old Kolbe was in a backpack. Horses had just been through the area, and I pointed out their mess to Tim.

"Don't step in the horse poop," I warned.

Kolbe burst out laughing like I had never heard him before. Deep down belly laughs. Guffaws.

"It's hard wired," I thought. Boys hear the word "poop" and they can't contain themselves.

This weekend was the Boshears fly-In here in Augusta. It's an ever-shrinking but still fun air show. The Boy Scouts camp out at the airport. Saturday evening is something called "The Cracker Barrel." The various scout troops assemble and entertain each other with skits. Apparently there are a few tried and true routines that get reheated each year. There's a "Hans and Fritz" number that's an oldie but a goodie. Last year being an election year, it morphed into "Hans and Joe the Plumber."

Kolbe came home and recounted some of the skits for me. One of them was LOL funny. Now LOL has to be one of the most tired expressions of the day, but in this case it fits-I really did laugh out loud and offended Kolbe in the process.

"You didn't laugh like that about our skit," he complained. "And ours had underwear. Real underwear."

Yep, underwear. It's right up there with poop for knee-slapping funny.

I can't say much for the rest of the show except that at one point Kolbe came up to Dave and asked, "What's a bra?"

And Dave probably guffawed.