How to Write Humor

Throngs of people, er, dozens of people, er, okay one person in my humor workshop once asked me what skills it takes to be a humor writer. I leaned back and thought a while.

“Excuse me, are you sleeping?”

“Huh? Oh, ah, no, of course not, ha-ha, it’s one of the skills required for all writing – deep thinking.”

“And the snoring?”

I wiped my chin. “All part of the game, my friend, all part of the game.”

Several students wrote this down. They will probably quote me in the future: “Famous humorist, er, funny person, er, this guy at the writers conference said dozing is important.”

Much later, which is often when profound what-I-should-have-said thoughts come to me, I realized the real secret of humor writing is… wait for it… screwing up a lot. Please hold the applause.

Home repair is a great place to hone these skills. I have a 50% success rate at fixing stuff. I completely disassembled the back of our washing machine once because the rotating thingee had stopped rotating and was making weird noises. After listening to it for several minutes and drawing on my vast knowledge of mechanical things, I figured the belt had come off. So, I started removing screws from the back but couldn’t gain access even after almost an hour. Meanwhile, my wife had called a repair guy who walked in, took one look at the back of the machine and said: “Oh man, who did this?” I whispered I thought it might be one of the kids. He shook his head, went to the front of the machine, loosened two screws and pulled the entire front of the machine off. Took him five minutes to fix it, and almost an hour to put it all back together. 

Then that time we noticed a weird smell emanating from our gas stove, which we hadn’t used all summer because I was barbecuing every day… 

“Who wants really well-done steak?” 

“Not again!”

…I dragged the stove out to the patio and disassembled it. I found that mice had moved in and used the insulation as nesting grounds. I went online and found out I could simply order another insulating blanket and install it myself, saving hundreds of dollars! Yay me.

So, I tore off the old insulation, saving most of the things attaching it and waited. Turns out it was backordered from Asia, one of the Stans, I think. 

“Who wants really well-done hot dogs and black beans?” 

“I thought we were having brown beans?” 

“Black is the new brown.”

Eventually, the insulation blanket arrived, I put the stove back together, throwing away the half-dozen parts that were somehow left over, dragged it back into the kitchen, hooked up the gas and yelled: “Here we go.” I yelled because the family was across the street, cowering behind large jacaranda trees. 

But it worked! And when the family moved back in a few days later, I offered to bake something from the recipe book that came with the stove insulation, even though I couldn’t read a word of it.

“Hello, Rusty’s Pizza. We need a week’s worth.”

Another place I used to find humor was golfing. “Fore!”

“I think you mean ‘Five’ because that’s the fifth time you have scattered the folks eating lunch on the patio.”

“But we’re not anywhere near the clubhouse.”

“Yeah, all those folks were on their own patios.”

I gave up golf because of my back, which led to my latest method for discovering humor – lying down. This is not to be confused with the aforementioned snoring advice. Lying down these days is for procedures. 

“Where does it hurt?”

“From my neck to my ankles.”

“Hmm. Probably your sciatica. Just relax while I prepare an injection.”

So, I stared at yet another ceiling. They should make ceilings more interesting. Like hire a modern-day Michelangelo or Marc Chagall to do a little painting. Although… that is an unusual light. I wonder who makes lights like that? Did they go to light-making school? Do you get a degree from light-making school? Guess you have to be a bright student. Wait. Is that funny? Bright student. How about…

“We’re ready Mr. Witham.”

“Just a minute okay, I’m working on my column…”