what’s funny on a friday?

I heard someone say once that “funny things are only funny because they’re true.” 

At the time it rubbed me the wrong way.  I could surely think of things that are really funny because they’re untrue.  Take Miss South Carolina’s recent blundering interview answer in last Friday’s Miss Teen USA pageant as an example.  Her answer is funny, but is it true?

When I reconsidered the notion that things are funny because they’re true, I realized what’s most funny about this clip is not what she’s saying, it’s who is saying it.  Consider the messenger.  A southern teenage beauty queen made up to look as perfect as possible, crashing in front of our eyes when asked an intellectual question. It’s as though we’ve known all along that pageant contestants were full of it, and now we finally have proof!  That’s what is true, so that’s why it’s funny. 

I wish the cartoon above wasn’t so funny…I wish it wasn’t spot on.  It harkens to every interview I’ve conducted with a cashier who wants to be a marketing executive, or a lumberyard laborer who wants the HR manager gig. The upper management of my company suspiciously avoids speaking of such interviews, lest our jobs here become literal and figurative jokes.

There’s no way that I can write about funny-vs-unfunny to any sort of conclusion.  I guess I just wanted to show you some of my favorite funny things on a Friday afternoon…