It took almost 20 years, but I have a new favorite joke.
My old favorite still makes me laugh, but not nearly as hard as it used to (be — a common condition at my age).
It happened when the Boy was 10 or maybe 12.
The Bear came to me with a rare case of indecision.
“I went into his room looking for something. He got really upset,” she said. “I’m not sure if he is right or not… he said I was violating his private life.”
I may have given myself a hernia, I laughed and laughed… Once I wiped the water from my eyes and held my abdominal wall in check, I answered.
“When did he start paying rent? He can have a private life when he moves into his own fucking house. This is our house. We have a private life.
That’s not his room — that’s our room. That’s not his stuff — he didn’t earn the money to buy those things — that’s our stuff.”
I’m sure I had heard those lines before. I’m sure it was from one of my parents — probably both. I liked the words so much, I was like Chris Rock and just saying them again, and again.
“Hey Boy, come in here and tell me what you told your mother…”
I can’t remember exactly what other words he used, but as soon as he said, “…my private life,” I bust out laughing again — “not your room — our room” over and over again..
Eventually the Bear joined in. We pointed at his face and laughed so hard, we couldn’t hear any of the words coming out of his mouth.
He was not amused.
The more he protested, the more we laughed. Eventually he just gave up.
But I didn’t. Every few weeks throughout his teenage years, I’d point and say “my private life” and laugh right in his face.
If I’m lucky, his girlfriend will have to pay for the therapy.
Private Lives are Watching You
But those days are gone. The “Boy” is nearly 30. He has his own place, his own car(s), his own camper shell on his own pickup truck. He’s got multiple private lives.
Several weeks ago a new favorite joke came into my life like an Easter fucking miracle. Before the shelter in and shutdown, we were playing tennis at the Third World club.
I was talking about Jesus — you know the one on the fucked-up tennis team.
“Maybe Jesus will resurrect his ass and make it to the team practice tonight,” I said.
“It will be a miracle if he comes back,” Grif said.
Kangaroo-faced Gibson couldn’t resist a chance to recruit — he professes some kind of faith — but I think he spends his Sunday service hitting double faults on court 9. I only caught the first 3 words…
“The real Jesus…”
I stuffed both hands in my waistband to keep my innards from spilling all over the court. I drowned out whatever testimonial Gibson may have been trying to “witness” with a series of giggles and guffaws. I had a hard time keeping the snot from streaming out of my nose.
“The real Jesus…” and I pointed and laughed, like Gibson was a 10-year-old boy demanding that his parents respect his “private life.”
He didn’t mean the tennis Jesus who whiffed at T-ball. Or all the fake Mexican Jesus’s who work at his landscaping company.
Gibson was referring to the myth. Old 3 nails and 4 holes, himself.
The “real Jesus”… You might as well call him the “real Zeus” or the “real Santa Claus.”
Tennis Jesus is more real. At least we get to see him once in a while. We don’t have to rely on the story of goat-herding illiterates to tell us a confusing tale full of conflicts and contradictions.
Here’s a fun game I found online. Take the stories of the resurrection in all four gospels and the book of Acts and make a timeline that makes sense. Spoiler alert. You can’t. At least one of them has to be wrong on key points like where, when and how it happened.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/easter-challenge/
Tell you what, anybody who can write a simple story that doesn’t violate these “truths” with a mistake or a lie, and I will stop laughing at your tales of the “real Jesus” for a week. I can’t go longer than 7 days before laughing at this shit… but maybe in a week I can find a new favorite joke…
My favourite joke is a bit less complicated:
“I went to the zoo the other day, there was only one dog in it.
It was a shitzu.”
Makes me laugh every time, my kids less so 😂
I think I’ve been to that shit zoo.
Gomer Pyle, once again you have the story wrong. It wasn’t on court, it was on a group text, but who cares. If one of your four other readers care to do any research themselves they can check out the best selling book, The Case for Christ. You actually read a chapter on archeology which surprised me, but I was even more surprised that you said it had good evidence. Unfortunately you stopped there and didn’t read further. For the other four readers and the hundreds of bots that visit your site I will just say that Lee Strobel was more of a communist heathen than you when he began his investigation. He was an atheist and a hard skeptic being from journalism. Also he was not some illiterate or a retard as you claim I am. He was a Yale law school graduate which I’m sure contributed to his being an atheist at the time. Now your readers and bots can do their own investigation if they want. It is worth the time, especially since none of us are getting out of this life without dying. By the way just so your readers know, I like it when you say I’m illiterate and a retard. You said once on a tennis post that I was a masochist. This can be your new favorite joke. Your welcome.
The fact that a few billion people (or even one former skeptic) believe a myth doesn’t make it true. The Case for Christ is so full of holes it couldn’t pass a peer review. But you can hold on to your fables if it makes you feel better. But “real Jesus” conversation was definitely in person and on a tennis court. We may have repeated in a chat, but definitely, definitely started as jibber jabber…
If there was any sort of Jesus who was crucified, he would have nails in his wrists, not his palms, but tah would have made him fall off.
If such a thing ever happened — probably used ropes. Nails were expensive and only shortened the torture of strangling to death.
I thought ropes were more expensive and the Romans did it to thousands at a time (in sequence, of course).
I’ve definitely mentioned the real Jesus many times on the tennis court too, just for your entertainment. The group text where you said “That is my new favorite joke.” was on March 29 at 5:02 pm. Tuesdays and Thursdays are definitely for jibber jabber. Tennis wouldn’t be the same without it. I’ll let your readers decide how good Lee Strobel’s book is. It is worth reading just to read about the crime stories he covers in his early days as a Chicago Tribune reporter. The rest of the book is his move from atheist to almost two years investigating Christianity and its claims. When he was an atheist he used to say, “If your mother says she loves you, get a second opinion.” Spoken like a true reporter, skeptic, atheist. He sounded a lot like you actually. Perhaps that is what scares you.
My buddy Joe one day had too much to drink at the local pub. Sure enough he puked on him self. The front of his shirt was a mess.
“My wife is going to kill me” he said.
Another friend came up with a solutions.
“Tell your wife someone else puked on your shirt and he paid to have it dry cleaned”,as he put a ten dollar bill in his shirt pocket.
Sure enough when Joe got home his wife noticed the soiled shirt.
“Did you puke on yourself again?”
Joe responded. “Not me, someone else did. He gave me ten dollars to get it cleaned.”
His wife reached in his shirt pocket and said, “there are two tens.”
“Oh yeah, He also shit my pants.”
Your joke is better than mine.
Thing are always much better without Jesus.
tennis Jesus is all right with me — at least he is a real person.