discrimination

We all know the PJ – Poor Joke, Pathetic Joke and whatnot. It’s the quip the wiseass unleashes with unfailing regularity. You don’t want to laugh at it – it is, after all, a spur-of-the-moment innovation, something the wiseass comes up with at moment’s notice. Nobody wants to laugh at a PJ, at least consciously. The PJ is actively discriminated against. 

What I don’t understand is why people don’t laugh at PJs. Most are funny. Not funny in the ‘The Rabbi says to the Priest…’ kind of way, but they’re funny in their own quirky way. Being someone who enjoys both hearing and cracking PJs, I can attest to the fact that they’re harder to create than the conventional jokes. Also, 99% of conventional jokes are created by someone who knows someone’s someone who happens to be someone’s someone’s friend who is your friend too. PJs are created by people like me, and you all know me in the first degree. Besides, not every situation is conducive to conventional jokes. PJs, on the other hand, are just fine almost everywhere except funerals (and maybe in some of those too). A conventional joke gives you a hearty “30 second” laugh once every few days. PJs give you “5 second” chuckles every few minutes.

STOP discriminating against the PJ. It deserves your laughter. Notice how, despite your best efforts to the contrary, it manages to make you chuckle, manages to get through your defences and makes you laugh. Give up. It’s hopeless. Resistance is futile!