The Mystery of the Shell

           You know those embarrassing stories that leave you doubled over, tears welling out of your eyes, from laughing so hard? The stories that never get old and that everyone finds just as hilarious as you do? This was one of those stories - or so I thought.

            To make a long story short, on my 8th grade trip to France I confused the nauseating stench that had been emanating from my backpack for a week as my dirty socks (I'll admit, I even feared it was my underwear!) rather than from a pink, innocuous-looking shell that happened to contain a fermenting dead animal. When I used to tell the full version of the story, wit a much larger buildup, as well as twists and turns and minute details about my every emotion and thought during the ordeal, it was always met with uncontrollable laughter. That's why I couldn't understand why I failed to elicit even a sympathetic chuckle when I told it to my FOOT group this past August. To tackle this issue (almost more embarrassing than my story itself), it's necessary to understand what causes laughter.

            Many theories attempt to describe laughter as arising from incongruity, superiority, relief, or even a corrective for rigidity, but the most applicable theory to this situation is John Morreall's idea that "laughter is an expression of pleasure at a psychological shift." In this case, the psychological shift arises from a state of curiosity, uncertainty, and suspense – due to not knowing what was causing the putrid odor – to a state of relief and understanding – from realizing what the actual culprit was. This shift was pleasant because not only is it comforting to know that dirty clothes don't give off a reek comparable to that of a rotting animal, but also because it's entertaining to realize how ridiculous I could have been for even considering that my clothes could smell so badly.

            This explanation seems to make sense - so the question becomes why did people stop laughing at my story? When I recounted my story to my FOOT group, I prefaced it by describing how I had found a shell on a beach in Saint Malo and put it in my bag. My FOOT group admitted they figured out what my story would be about as soon as I shared this detail. Using Morreall's terms, because of this no psychological shift occurred - there was no initial phase of mystery and curiosity - therefore, no one laughed.

            I guess the moral of the story is a pretty obvious one: don't give away the punch line before you even start your story if you hope to get some laughs! 

Death-Like Silence

            It started off as a typical first day of school: the professor, standing in front of the class, described the syllabus, class expectations, and homework as we all tried to keep our eyes open, no longer used to waking up and hitting the books. I had no idea that a discussion of excused versus unexcused absences would become the highlight of my day.

            The professor (who shall remain nameless) prefaced his joke by saying a colleague of his had sent him a really funny story he wanted to share with the class. While I wanted to give him a chance by keeping an open mind about this supposedly humorous anecdote, apprehension had already begun to creep in as I wondered if this would be one of those academic jokes that no one outside the field (and sometimes even those within it) finds funny.

            He proceeded to relate the joke, trying to repress his smile: apparently there is a spike in deaths of grandmas around exam time, so he informed us he would not be accepting that as an excused absence. While he probably expected a roar of laughter, a wave of silence enveloped the room as students looked at each other, puzzled and somewhat offended. I turned to my suitemate and whispered, "What is he talking about? Is that supposed to be funny?" His smile fell slightly as he tried to explain the "joke" to us, and while that got a few forced giggles, the more common response was surprise at his insensitivity. What if someone's grandma really had recently died? The subject was too sensitive to be joked about.

            The intent of the joke was to establish an incongruity between the gravity of death and the frequency and ease with which students purportedly implement this excuse. Furthermore, the professor hoped to elicit a positive psychological shift in the students by starting off with a somber situation (death of a loved one) but then making us realize that no one's grandma had actually died and it was just an excuse triggered by the doom of an impending exam. While this shift did occur - we did realize that he was kidding - it certainly was not pleasant. Being so close to my grandma myself, I was upset that he would try to make such an emotionally painful situation so light. Furthermore, it was difficult to grasp this shift: it took students far too long to realize he was joking, perhaps because he didn't change his intonation or manner of speaking. While incongruity usually causes laughter, in this case the disparity between the seriousness of the issue and the intended lightness of the message and response was too great to be comical: instead, it became inappropriate and offensive, and the only thing that got killed was his joke. In other words, there's a fine line between the amusing and offensive when it comes to incongruity. Perhaps we should think more before cracking a joke if we don't want to be faced with deafening, disheartening, DEATH-like silence.