When you and your spouse have different senses of humor

Terry and I have many things in common, but we also differ in enough ways to make life interesting.

Take, for example, what each of us finds funny. Again, there is some overlap, but overall, our individual senses of humor are markedly different.

WHAT MAKES ME LAUGH: British comedy, the Airplane! move series, standup comedians who make you work a little to get the joke, puns, and the broad genre of dad jokes.

WHAT MAKES TERRY LAUGH: Any time I hit my head on something.

As far as I can tell, nothing in this world is funnier to my wife than when I experience some sort of misfortune, particularly physical misfortune that results in near-injury.

She will tell you it's not so much the actual act of me, say, bumping my skull on something, but rather the way I react to it.

All I know is there is an undeniable link between my pain and her amusement.

If we could somehow find a movie that combines Monty Python-style humor with a man randomly popping up and whacking me over the head with a stick, it would be the perfect date night for us.

I'm a confirmed headbanger, but not in the heavy metal sense

I hit my head on stuff a lot.

Getting in and out of my car, walking past a protruding shelf, trying to adjust the weight on a machine at the gym. Whatever the activity, I manage to bang my noggin on some inanimate object (and occasionally animate objects like, say, other humans) at least once a week.

The result is often a gash or welt around my scalp that my barber Tom will notice and ask, "What happened there?"

So I have to relate the story to him, and it's usually embarrassing.

There are two possible explanations for my tendency toward inadvertent cranial smashing:

(1) MY HEAD IS LARGE: It's not freakishly large, but it's big. I remember when I played football having the second-biggest helmet on the team. The only person with a larger helmet was Jermaine Porter, and he was half a foot taller and 60 pounds heavier than me.

(2) I AM NOT ESPECIALLY COORDINATED: This feels more likely. Quite often, my sense of where my body is in space does not align well with the reality of where it actually is. I'll be striding through the house thinking, "I have plenty of clearance to get past the refrigerator!" Then BANG, the refrigerator will jump out and painfully smack me in the head.

Whatever the cause, I blame continuous skull thumping for my failing memory. It has nothing at to do with the fact I'm almost 55 years old and everything to do with the mini-concussions I sustain each week.

Somehow, that part of it at least makes me feel better.

Ten random thoughts on a Friday

1. Crayon colors I could do without: Burnt sienna, cornflower, pine green, either red orange or orange red (one or the other...we don't need both).
   
   
2. Crayon colors I like: Silver, brick red, forest green, cerulean, raw umber.
   
   
3. This week between Christmas and New Year's Day is the strangest one of the year. Some people are working, some aren't. Some businesses are open, some aren't. My inclination is to say that everyone and everything should just shut down, but there are certain stores I need to stay open this week because I want to shop there. If we could all just agree to make me Holiday Czar, the whole thing would work out fine.
   
   
4. This is sort of awkward, but how come no one bothered to tell me that Ernest Borgnine and Abe Vigoda were still alive? And while we're on the subject, how can that be?
   
   
5. If I'm flipping through channels and I come across an episode of "M*A*S*H," I will always stop and watch. Always.
   
   
6. Every Tuesday, Terry babysits a little girl named Ava. It's a nice way for her to earn some extra cash, and our whole family just loves little Ava. Chloe has taken on Ava-watching responsibilities during this Christmas break, and the other day I saw her changing Ava's diaper. And do you know what? I realized I miss changing diapers. Never in a million years did I think I would ever say that, but it has been awhile since we had any diaper-wearers in the house, and I actually miss it. It was always a nice little bonding time with the child in question. Of course, I understand perfectly that if given the responsibility of changing diapers again, I would get sick of it after maybe two changings. I know that. But for now, I officially (sort of) miss it.
   
   
7. I wish I had time to read magazines. I've always thought that magazine readers were smarter than the rest of us. Maybe I'm wrong there.
   
   
8. This will almost certainly be the first time in history that someone has typed this sentence, but it's true: I wish I had learned to play the bassoon.
   
   
9. Because of my big head, I don't often wear hats of any kind. They just don't look good on me. I am deeply envious of all you tiny-headed hat-wearers.
   
   
10. For the second Christmas in a row, we gave Jared a gift card to Baker's Square to buy his own pie. The boy loves pie, LOVES it. Last year he got a pumpkin pie and ate the whole thing by himself in less than 24 hours. I'm sure he'll do it again this year. He eats like this all the time, and I doubt he weighs more than a buck-30. I understand the whole teenage-boy-metabolism thing, but seriously, how can he not be 300 pounds? He defies all known laws of physics and biology. Again, I'm jealous and baffled.