Thursday, January 25, 2007

Silly games (read: Julie will be mighty annoyed with me soon)

I had a link to this blog in my inbox today. It got me, gasp, thinking.

When I first lived in Minnesota, there was a guy, Dan, in my program, who was quite funny. At least he seemed so me at the time, though I think he has the kind of personality that I would still consider funny. He’s the person who turned me on to Letterman (I was new to the States at the time). He also had eyes that couldn’t seem to decide what they were looking at – or, rather, which made it hard for a conversational partner to focus on. And, one more aside, for some reason I remember his name as Dan Brown – although he couldn’t possibly be THAT Dan Brown.
He had this line he’d say, which I thought terribly funny (at the time). At any moment, he might respond to someone’s statement with, “That’s what SHE said,” with a Groucho Marx inflection. Harmless statements would get the (to me, at the time) funniest reinterpretations.
“It’s dark in here. Let’s turn on the light.” “That’s what SHE said.”
“Hey, can you lend a hand?” “That’s what SHE said.”
Etc. ad nauseam, except, of course that there was no way the nauseam level would be reached for me (at the time).

(I'm trying to let you know I've outgrown the impulse to say it out loud, though I often still think it.)

Later, in Chicago, I heard the same concept applied in a different way, from my friend Tom (I forgot his last name, sorry). His version was to add “in bed” to whatever someone said. I never liked it as much as “that’s what SHE said,” probably because the concept wasn’t new to me anymore (“in bed”), but also because it’s not quite as flexible (“in bed”).
You get the idea.

So on this blog they have this game in which they add the words “in my pants” to any book title. Same idea, but it links the prurient and infantile to stuff that ought to be above such matters, and all of a sudden I’m hooked again.
The best example of theirs (I think) is, “Everything That Rises Must Converge In My Pants.”
For example, I am currently reading “Just Enough Liebling In My Pants.”
I recently finished “Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt In My Pants.”
But I have other goodies on my shelf, like
Last Night’s Fun In My Pants
This Is a Bad Time In My Pants
Love Trouble In My Pants
Max Shulman’s Large Economy Size In My Pants
The Human Stain In My Pants
I’m a Stranger Here Myself – In My Pants
And one of Coco’s favorite books is “Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog In My Pants.”

Tell me this isn’t a fun game.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I thought you were ALWAYS thinking. Mama