Table Talk

While slurping my Cream of Wheat I asked my kids if they knew what the word history meant. My eight-year-old confirms, “Like the presidents, and the history of the wheel.” My seven-year-old raises his spoon in the air with that light-bulb look on his face and proclaims, “I know the history of Papa’s dad!” I ask him to expound. “He’s dead!” my boy remarked; reveling in his brilliance.

I find this humorous! I tried to suppress a snicker when he said it. The Bolivian sense of humor is rubbing off on me a bit. Death is a main theme in Bolivian humor. During my first weeks here I asked my language teacher for a clean, typical joke. Here it is:

Everyday an elephant sat under a shade tree. Everyday he smashed many ants as he sat. The ants would scream but the elephant did not hear. One day the ants met to decide what to do about the elephant. They decided to attack the elephant by jumping on it all at once. They all jumped on him. The elephant began to shake and the ants went flying in all directions. Only one ant was left on the elephant’s neck. She yelled, “What do I do now?” Her friends yelled, “Strangle him!”

Once, an American told a story and I translated. He began, “In a village that didn’t have the word of God a boy was dying on his bed who had heard of the Bible. The boy’s dying request was that he might see a Bible. He died that night. The next morning there was a knock on the door. They answered and found a missionary with a bible in his hands.” As the story finished the teller had tears in his eyes. Sadness quickly turned to shock upon hearing the crowd burst out in laughter. Looking to me for help I told him to just move on.

Humor is a funny thing.