I don't have a whole refrigerator's worth of magnets, the way some people do. I just have a few (among a few other things) on the side (and only near the top). They have to be kind of "special" for me to think they're worthy of "posting". Some are things like phone numbers of businesses. I have a couple for each holiday (that aren't up all year round). My daughter made some really nice ones, so they're there. There's one or two related to people's vacations.
Anyway, this one I saw that struck me so funny didn't even have any picture on it. Maybe that's why it struck me as funny as it did. The words, to me, conjured up the image of, maybe, a person on, say, a baseball field with some super fast baseball headed straight at the back of this individual's head from somewhere afar.
The magnet has been on the refrigerator for years now, and at some point in the last couple of years one of my sons told me how his girlfriend had seen it when she was with him at the house, and he said how she thought it was funny. He was laughing a little as he mentioned it, and it got me laughing too. We weren't doubled over laughing or anything like that. We did, however, get on kind of giggling roll. My son and I have a similar sense-of-humor, as family members often do. He (and his siblings) also know that some of the things that have gone on in our lives are things for which I have some real heavy duty contempt and disgust. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but there has been truly nothing funny in any of it while at the same time I'm tempted to call some of it "laughable".
While over the years there have certainly been times when I'd approach one "issue" or another with my best efforts to present fairness and wisdom, there have been other times when I've used attitude, sarcasm (not the mean kind, by the way), and/or general humor to either introduce a few laughs or lightness into the mix, or else, maybe, in an attempt to show one or another (or all) of my kids that their mother is strong, solid, and (while not immune to rotten stuff going on) able to remain strong, "above it", and (hopefully) an example of how to deal with some of the rotten stuff in life.
My kids and I have had a lot of slightly sinister-feeling giggles over some of the absurdity that we've dealt with (and I'm not talking about the stuff that has more been tragic than "absurd").
Back to the magnet: As I was thinking of a number of things earlier I was thinking about how my son and I had gotten on that "giggle roll" over the magnet. He knows what I think of so much stuff that we've all had to deal with, and he knows the contempt and disgust I've had for so much of what has at times gone on.
As I thought about what made the magnet so funny to me I realized that while I got a mild chuckle out of the image of that clueless person with the baseball headed at him (combined with thoughts of the words on the magnet); the giggles that, for me, were the most fun and kind of sinister required more than just that simple image and those simple words.
Normally, I don't find people getting hit by wild baseballs very funny. In order for it to be funny I had to also have the image of that person on the baseball field being really arrogant as someone else tried to tell him (or her) that the baseball was headed toward his head. The arrogant and clueless individual with that high-speed baseball coming straight at the back of his clueless head had to be really sure of himself and really sure that the person trying to spare him some pain knew what he (or she) was seeing and talking about. Yes, in order to truly understand why I found that magnet as funny as I did involved realizing that arrogance and condescension had to be combined with the cluelessness of the individual who was about to be beaned. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so funny.
The magnet has been up for so long I'd long ago forgotten that I'd put it on the refrigerator. So, when my son mentioned it after so long I once again imagined the arrogant and/or condescending individual with the baseball headed straight at the back of his (or her) head; and getting exactly what he had coming. There are all kinds of things that go on in life that we don't see coming. There's nothing about not seeing some things that makes anyone who doesn't seem worthy of ridicule (and a high-speed baseball to the back of the head). It's the arrogance and contempt that make the difference.
Also, it isn't even being clueless that makes that imagined individual worthy of the high-speed baseball. We're all clueless about any number of things. Again, it 's that arrogance and contempt. It's also refusal to listen to the warnings of someone who is only trying to warn someone else about that baseball; because, boy, if the arrogant and clueless individual isn't interested in being warned about that baseball headed straight for his noggin he sure as hell isn't likely to get much more of a clue once he's been knocked farther into La-La Land than he already is.
There's nothing worthy of ridicule about not seeing something coming as long as one doesn't tell the person who DOES see it coming, and who tries to warn the other, that what he (or she) sees doesn't exist. (When you think about it, imagine the degree of arrogance it takes to ignore what someone else actually sees and to tell him (or her) that he doesn't see what he sees with his own eyes.)
Yes, it's funny to imagine the arrogant, condescending, and clueless individual getting knocked out and having imaginary stars swirling around his head (the way they do in cartoons). In real life, and away from the harmlessness of the world of refrigerator magnets, it isn't at all funny.
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