Anatomy of a BAD joke

A bunch of people most of us have in common have been and will be blogging about a conference we all went to this weekend: LDS Storymakers. And it was epic. Most people will tell you it's because the classes were awesome, the speakers incredible, etc. All true, by the way. But it was epic for me for entirely different reasons.


See, here's the thing. The very first post from which most people discovered me three years ago chronicled the absolute disaster of my first writing conference. That story is here. You'll think it's funny. Maybe we're at the point where tragedy + time = comedy, because I admit, I think it's kinda funny now, too. Kinda.


Then at last year's conference, I had another moment of total idiocy which you can read about here. Yeah, you'll get the idiot shivers. Me, too. I'm learning it's a function of me + writing conferences = tragedy.


So it should come as no surprise to you that I'm fresh back from another conference and this time, I reached the highest heights--wait, no. Make that the lowest of lows, in my quest to flame out of one of these on such a massive scale that I'm forever barred from all writing conferences. In the world. EVER.


All right. Here's the thing. This comes down to a joke. Imagine if you will, a girl walks up with something scribbled on her conference name badge. Let's say someone named Becca squints and (to be funny) says, "Does that say (insert name of not very famous author) was here?" And the other girl, we'll call her Karen, says "No," like why would she want the autograph of that minor author? And then I think I'm being funny and I say, "What she's not telling us is that she now has a lower back Sharpie tattoo that says (not famous author) was here."


Okay. Not a great joke. In hindsight, marginally inappropriate. The joke was intended to circumscribe a couple of tropes (yeah, I just explained it that way--I'm too tired to think of the easy words, so let's all cope) into one joke: dumb groupies of rock stars etc. who get Sharpie tattoos on their bodies + how the tramp stamp is usually the most cliched spot for a girl to get a tattoo = witty. 


So, yeah. Not a great joke. But let's now imagine that instead of me cracking this joke about two girls (because I'd been hanging out with primarily women for two days straight at this point) that I cracked it about two guys (because I'd been hanging out with primarily women for two days straight and wasn't thinking clearly about my audience). I meant the joke the same way that it would have been meant had it actually been two girls involved (tramp stamp Sharpie tattoo of minor celebrity = silly), but if it's two guys, the meaning of the joke TOTALLY changes.


Just think about it.


The poor man who I was teasing blanched and looked horrified. It took me a full forty-five minutes to figure out why he was horrified. Then I was horrified. Like, completely and utterly horrified.


I leaned over and begged Becca to tell me how to fix it. She was like, "Oh, sister. You can't." My other friend Brittany was like, "Ohhhhh. Yeah, okay, I get where you were going now, but I totally thought you were making a different joke and I was a little shocked." 


And I was all sobbing and what not.


Okay, I wasn't sobbing. But I was writhing on the inside. Really, it was awful. Beyond awful.


I don't know if I'm going to have to swear off writing conferences in the future, or maybe just the vodka I'm always hiding in my water bottles. But something's gotta give.