Thursday, December 4, 2008

Some People Just Have No Sense of Humor

A recent Wordless Wednesday post reminded me of why I don't have many friends in real life.

People just can't stand me.

When teaching a unit on the Age of Exploration, we did a day on piracy. Let me preface this by saying I am a damn fine history teacher and go all out on my lessons. We're talking music, visual aides, bizarre re-enactments. It's kind of a come at your own risk environment.

Because I don't go by the textbook alone, I do a lot of research and am sure to add random aspects of the personal side of history. Forget the facts and figures, it's all cause and effect, baby.

During this particular semester, people were coming down with the usual springtime colds and sinus infections. A couple of the male teachers were pissing and moaning in the workroom about not feeling well. I chimed in saying how achy I felt and that I had felt badly for a while.

I told them I thought I had scurvy.

Now, I said this with what I thought was great comedic timing. Work the build-up of symptoms, drop the word scurvy, pause for effect.

The math teacher went ape shit on me. He went bright red and spluttered all kinds of reasons as to how there was no way I could have scurvy.

Really?

Gee, thanks for the heads-up.

After several attempts at interrupting, I was finally able to get it through his thick skull that I was kidding. You know, the whole piracy unit and all? Talk about ruining a perfectly good joke.

Stupid dumb fuck.

11 comments:

Arizaphale said...

I didn't know you were a fellow history teacher! Should come over here more often shouldn't I and I might have picked it up!?

I am also a Maths teacher however so I know just how humourless they can be. Fortunately at our place our Maths staff are amongst the most bizarre on site. With scurvy I'm sure you would fit right in :-)

A Free Man said...

Math teachers are humorless, masochistic bastards.

RiverPoet said...

Heh, math majors/teachers have a sense of humor but they usually have to explain their jokes using a calculator, whiteboard, and a compass. :-D I can say that because my son is a math major.

Even he would have understood that you were joking, though. Mama taught him well.

Peace (and take care of that scurvy, woman!)

Peace - D

Anonymous said...

Everything is serious to a math teacher. Jokes? Lost on them and a waste of words, methinks . . .

Mr. Gin and Tonic said...

Because of my irrational fear of Scurvy, I try to consume one full lime each day. Usually, the lime is garnished with Gin, or perhaps Tequila..

On a side note, I also have an irrational fear of clowns. However, appart from avoiding circusses, there doesn't seem to be much I can do about that one.

Anonymous said...

A freeman that was a bit harsh on arizaphale wasnt it?
And NATUI- "Stupid dumb fuck" ahahahahhahahahha. Totally. What an eedjit that guy sounds like! You remind me of me, doesnt mean the guy doesnt like you though!

Patois42 said...

Ha ha ha. I get off on people not getting jokes. I guess that's why people don't like me either.

Shelley Jaffe said...

What can you do? Some people are dyed-in-the-wool literalists, and love nothing more than to beat a joke into a bleeding, writhing mass.

Asshats.

Anonymous said...

See just as Im thinking maybe I do want to go back to teaching history at school I remember I hate most people because they deserve to be hated. :P Interacting with wankers like that guy reminds me that at least as a freelancer ESL trainer I have little interaction with the people I work with unless I choose to be so.

People suck, not you! Mass man versus select!

Gypsy said...

I think that guy falls under the "Too Stupid to Live" category.

Irrational Dad said...

If I had a history teacher that did interesting stuff like, that... I might have gone to class more often than like once a week.