Unfunny Cantaloupes
By Paige Murray
My mind is blank. I don't
know how to be funny. My momma says it's in my jeans. Wait. That’s not right. Genes–there
we go.
Anyway, my father and his
father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and
his father before him, and his–well you get the gist. They were all comedic in
some type of way. Some did stand up comedy, some wrote stories, some wrote joke
books, some wrote scripts, etcetera etcetera. So basically, it’s in my blood,
or so I’ve been told. I don’t believe it though. Here, I’ll show you. I will
tell you the funniest joke I can think of. Ready? Okay.
Why do all cantaloupes
have weddings? Because they cant-elope! Ha! Get it? No? Oh well, I told you,
I’m just not funny. Everyone expects me to be some kind of hilarious person
just because my father is and his father was before him, and his father before
him, and his father before him, and his father before him, and so on and so
forth, but I’m not. I mean just because I have “funny genes” (the DNA kind, not
my pants) doesn’t mean that I’m funny. My jeans are the funny ones, not
me!
You see, even right now
I’m not being funny. Sure, this whole thing is riddled with dumb jokes, but
it’s the same two every time. It’s either how easily jeans and genes can get
mixed up, or how much of my family was comedic. I need new jokes. Ok, you’re gonna
be my test subject, ok? No? Well, that’s too bad, you have to read my terrible
attempt at being funny anyway. Here we go.
Why did the cookie go to
the doctor? Because he was feeling kinda crummy!
What did the mug say when
it fell? I’m not ready to spill the tea yet!
What did the floor say
when it got hit by a teacup? I’ve been mugged!
Well, there you go! I hope you enjoyed my miserable attempt at comedy! If you didn’t I don’t wanna know, so keep that to yourself. Well, now I’ve gotta go write something funny for my ELA class, so wish me luck! Actually though, I need it, because like I said, I don’t know how to be funny.
My First Day of Golf
By Mari Cate Stewart
When I first began playing
golf, I thought the hardest part would be hitting the ball far.
Well, it turns out the
hardest part is actually hitting the ball.
So the first time I
went to golf practice, I walked up to that tee box and was honestly feeling
pretty confident.
I had watched YouTube
videos, and had practiced swinging in my backyard.
In my head I was a
professional.
I stuck my tee in
the ground, took a deep breath, and swung as hard as I could.
And completely
missed.
It wasn't even a
little miss, it was a full swing.
Whoosh sound and
everything. It didn’t even fall off the tee.
I’m pretty sure it
was even staring back at me judging.
So what did I do, I
tried again.
And missed… again.
Now all the old
country club guys are staring at me since I'm taking so long, and I felt all
the pressure.
Nothing makes you
miss the ball more than people staring you down.
I took a deep
breath, focused super hard, and swung again.
This time I actually hit
the ball, along with a fat chunk of grass and dirt that flew up.
The ball rolled forward…
maybe six feet. At this point I just stopped and stared at it.
Six whole
feet.
Wow.
I had just taken three of
the biggest swings of my life and I actually only made contact once.
And it barely even rolled
anywhere.
My friend goes, “Nice
shot.”
I just looked back and
stared at her while nodding my head.
By the end of that round I
had learned something very important about golf.
Golf is the only sport
where you can walk four miles, lose five balls, hit a few trees, and somehow
still say, “That one shot on hole five was pretty good.”
A Comedy Draft
By Jayson Harmon
No! That's just not funny
enough, I said to myself for the tenth time. You may be wondering how I got
myself into this position in the first place. Well it all started when my
fourth period teacher Mr Young came up with the brilliant idea to make me write
a comedy script. When he said that, the first thing I thought to myself was how
in the heck am I supposed to write something funny. I never really thought
about trying to be funny. If something funny came to my head I would say it,
but I never actively thought about it. Mr Young would go on to give us several
examples of authors who wrote comedy, one of which being The
Inspector-General. It was an interesting story about, I don’t even
remember. The only thing I remember is Mr Young's distinct neighs that could be
heard across the room. Don’t ask me why. I think he was trying to get Will to
do it or something, he may have just felt like it, I don’t know. After that we
would then move on to Bill Cosby’s Go Deep to the Sewer. It’s a somewhat
funny story about Cosby’s childhood. Cosby and friends would play sports all
day in the streets of Philadelphia. We would go on to finish the story, and by
that time it was time to leave.
The next day things were
interesting. Mr Young would instruct us to get into groups and start
highlighting dialogue, dialect, figurative language, action scenes, and action
overviews. Why we needed to do that to write comedy I haven’t the slightest
idea. We would start with dialogue and dialect. This would go smoothly until we
went to lunch, and in light of the dialect discussion Will decided to do a
terrible New York accent while trying to say the word water.This would lead
Brodie to come up with the brilliant idea to imitate a Japanese accent. He
would go on to talk like this for 2 hours straight. It was certainly
interesting when Brodie gets to talking about something he really loves to just
talk. (to keep this essay gradable I will not go into any more detail about
that) Anyway, enough of that. After lunch we would continue studying various
“Comedies”. We would read about how stupid some of Thomas Edison's decisions
were. Like come on now, concrete houses and not using the spinny thingy for
music. His ideas were about as good as mine for this writing.
Finally we would read an
excerpt from Lewis Grizzard. It was pretty funny, but my main takeaway was he
was a boomer who liked to complain a lot. Welp that was about it. Now how am I
going to write this script? I could try some dad jokes that normally gets Mr
Young laughing, here it goes.
When does a joke become a dad joke?
When it becomes apparent.
I wouldn’t buy anything with velcro.
It’s a total rip-off.
No, that's not good enough
idea’s, idea’s…I got it! I’m just going to retell the days leading up to this
thing. Yeah it will be perfect, they'll never see it coming. What? I already
did that, well you caught me. Was it at least a little funny? No, well that's
okay you're going to have to read it anyway. So enjoy or don’t I don’t really
care.
The Art of Relevance in Writing
By Levi Arnold
Some people can’t write. They’ll start on
one topic, and next thing you know, they’re going down a rabbit hole.
Rabbits… have you ever
taken the time to really think about how fast they reproduce? Do you think when
goats reproduce that they know it’s just a joke? Like with goats, the mama goat
could scream in pain and when the daddy comes to check on her she just says, “
beh-eh-eh I’m just kidding.”
That’s besides the point
though. The point is that some people can’t focus on one point long enough to
establish a point at all. Are you pointing at me? The reader cannot track what
the author is trying to say.
It reminds me of a story
my uncle told me… there were three people who came across a mysterious set of
tracks in the woods. The first guy thought they were chicken tracks. The second
guy thought it was mongoose tracks. The third guy said… well I don’t remember
what he said the tracks were, but I do remember what he said was wrong (like
predestination or something). Anyways, the three guys argue over it for half an
hour until the sudden realization hits all of them at once like a train… that’s
because they were indeed hit by a train.
It’s kind of like how you
see a ball in the air getting bigger, but you don’t understand until it hits
you. If only geometry would click like that.
Some people don’t know how
to write. They get derailed and lose their train of thought and the main point
of their essay just don’t click the way forced perspective does. It’s a
blessing that I can write though.
