Friday, July 31, 2009

Cultural Humor and Dirtification

I blogged about this a couple of years ago, but I wanted to add to it. It's interesting how you grow up in a culture within your own family, and you have your own family sense of humor. I'm sure that when my siblings and I get together and talk, we think we are really funny. We really laugh at each other's jokes. But I wonder if other people listening would find it funny. I think it might be a cultural thing, and that our sense of humor is learned. For example, my kids are funny, but it is a different sense of humor than I grew up with. Maybe it's not so much familial, but generational. Either way, I think you kind of had to grow up in it to understand it sometimes.

I blogged before about how when I was young I noticed a light colored patch on my ribs. It looked just like someone had put a patch of suntan lotion there before letting me go out in the sun. When I asked my mother what it was, she answered in her own dry sense of humor. She said, "I guess it's "dirtification" setting in." As a child, I didn't get her sense of humor, and I thought I had this really cool skin condition. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe she did think that I just needed a bath, and that one patch was the only clean thing on me. lol I would say to my friends in a proud voice, "I have dirtification!" Then I would show them the white patch. It wasn't until years later when I remembered my "dirtification" that I was mortified that I was telling my friends about it.

A year or so ago I went to the dermatologist. I went to have him check something, but he asked if I would like him to do a whole body check while I was there. I thought that was a good idea, so he did. He noticed the patch, and asked me how long I had it. I told him I thought it might be a birth mark. I then told him that when I was young my mother told me it was "dirtification". And then I sat there listening to the silence. Not a chuckle...not a smirk.... I guess you had to grow up our family's culture...I guess you had to be there. :)

2 comments:

Ramana Rajgopaul said...

I have been suffering from a disease that a very sour teacher loaded me with once in school. It is arthritis of the brain!

Amber said...

and sometimes you yourself are the only one getting it - the other day i just cracked myself up telling a story - every time i thought about it I would laugh, but no one else thought it was funny