by D J McAdam
I had an idea the other day that I might like to try my hand at writing humor. I like to write, and I like to laugh; why not combine the two interests? As a young man, I enjoyed reading Thurber, and Wodehouse, and that fellow whose son wrote Jaws. They were humor writers, and seemed to have made a living at it. If they could do it, I said to myself, I can do it. In the morning, during my coffee break, I told a co-worker about my idea.
That afternoon, three men arrived at my cubicle. One wore a black suit, one wore a gray suit, and the third wore a striped suit, which was, oddly enough, black and gray. "Are you the guy who's thinking about writing humor?" the man in the black suit asked me.
"News travels fast," I said. (Now there, I think, is a good example of why I could be a writer. I didn't write, "'News travels fast,' I smiled," because I'm wise enough to know that one cannot smile words. Just an aside.)
"You bet it does," the man in the gray suit said. "Your insurance up to date?"
I told them that I did not see what writing humor had to do with my insurance, which produced mirthless guffaws all around.
"We're from the ASDW," the man in the striped suit explained. I asked if that was some sort of insurance company, which seemed a reasonable enough inference. Mr. Stripe Suit regarded my ignorance somewhat disdainfully. "ASDW," he repeated. "American Society of Disclaimer Writers."
"I didn't know there was such a thing," I said.
"No," Mr. Black Suit said. "We didn't expect you would have. What sort of disclaimers are you planning on having in the front of your book?"
"I wasn't planning on writing a book," I said. "Not at first, anyway. I just thought I'd write some humorous pieces and post them on my website. A parody of the Da Vinci Code, a recollection of my family finally getting together for Christmas and opening presents in August; that sort of thing."
The three men conferred amongst themselves. The words were inaudible, but from the tone of their buzzing, I could tell that what I'd said had not been met with the utmost enthusiasm. Finally, Mr. Gray Suit looked me in the eye with a dark expression. "To put it bluntly, pal," he told me, "you're gonna need disclaimers up the wazoo. This may be more expensive than you thought."
It seemed wise, at least for the moment, to resist the urge to ask him to specify the location of one's wazoo. "Why would I need disclaimers for that sort of thing?" I asked.
Mr. Black Suit stepped up to answer that question. "You parody the Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown sues you. His publisher sues you. Maybe Tom Hanks sues you. Maybe da Vinci still has descendants, and they sue you. Plus, there must be somebody who thinks the Da Vinci Code is well-written, and now you've made him look like a jerk, so he sues you.
"You make fun of your family celebrating Christmas. Everybody in your family sues you. Somebody else whose family celebrates Christmas in August thinks you're making fun of him, and he sues you. Maybe Wal-Mart sues you."
"Why in God's name would Wal-Mart sue me?" I asked.
"Why not?" he said, shrugging. "What've they got to lose?"
Before I could answer that one - and I'm not sure I could have answered that one - Mr. Striped Suit picked up the ball. "I'm worried about this whole website thing," he said. "You've got to warn people in advance that they might be reading humorous material."
I asked why a warning would be necessary. He regarded me with the look of a man who believes that there really are such things as stupid questions. "Why? What if some guy reads the stuff at work, and starts laughing, and his boss comes over to see what's so funny, and then the guy gets fired?"
"But wouldn't that be his fault?" I protested.
"Fault?" Mr. Gray Suit asked. "Fault? That's your defense? If people suddenly started saying things were their fault, and let it go at that, we wouldn't have disclaimers everywhere, would we?"
"You're going to tell Tom Hanks something was his fault?" Mr. Black Suit asked suddenly.
I started to get a headache. I like Tom Hanks. Maybe this whole humor writing thing was a bad idea, after all.
"Besides," Mr. Striped Suit said triumphantly, "what if you write something so funny somebody starts laughing convulsively, and has to be rushed to a hospital?"
The four of us looked at each other and then, after a moment, collectively heaved a sigh of relief. That, at least, we knew would not happen.
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