deadpan

Sure, I've tried sending flowers. I've tried writing love letters. I've tried singing serenades. But the flowers always die, the letters are always returned, and singing unfailingly gets me shot at. Overall, I think people I'm interested in view me as some sort of primate sub-species, like an orangutan or monkey, inferior to them in every way possible.

This hurts me.

Monkeys killed my father, you know. I'm not kidding. They were eating their bananas and flinging their poo, just like monkeys are wont to do, when my dad, being the kind soul that he was, decided he should feed one of the poor monkeys. It wasn't long before they just started bludgeoning him with their bananas and poo. It was awful. On the death certificate, under cause of death it said "bananas and poo".

The funeral was almost as bad as the zoo. The undertaker must've been drunk or on drugs or something, because he didn't clean the body very well, and the whole time the priest kept saying things like "Yay, though I walk through the valley of *sniff sniff* what's that smell?" and "Ashes to ashes, monkey poo to monkey poo". At the wake, people who didn't know my father all that well would come up all the time and ask how he died. I'd try to tell them he died a civilised death, like cancer or during a bank robbery, but some jerk would butt in and say "well, monkey poo. Didn't you hear?"

Life after that was pretty tough. A lot tougher than it had to be. Kids at school kept calling me "monkey boy" or "banana head" or "that kid whose stupid dad was killed by monkeys at the zoo". It's not funny. I swear, I wanted to kill each and every one of those sick little monkeys.

One night, I snuck into the county zoo with one of dad's golf clubs, thinking that it would be poetic to putt the bastards to death. I got into the cage and they all started shrieking. I couldn't hit a single one of them, not even with a nine iron. Dad always said I had a terrible slice. The shame haunted me for the rest of my days.

You, of course, think this is all one big joke. Everyone in your family has died a normal, rational, respectable death, so it's all right to laugh at the kid who was orphaned by monkeys. That's right. The furry little bastards killed my mom, too, when she was trying to save me from their retaliation during the golfing fiasco.

How would you feel if your parents were murdered by monkeys? Well, I'll tell you something: I feel sick. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.

For better examples of deadpan humor, read The Onion or watch the movie Happiness.

Or take a cue from my sister who, when asked at a party what our dad does, launched into a tirade similar to this:

"Oh, nothing much nowadays. He's back home in Texas, just feeding the animals. Yeah, I don't hear from him too much, but I guess that's to be expected, what with him having to be forced underground by troubles with the NRA. Last I heard, he was growing quite a nice little garden, which makes sense, seeing as how he spent so much time in the fertilizer industry. Those animals, though... Those animals love him! He gives every bit of himself to those little critters. I guess his heart's just opened up ever since he quit drinking. He hasn't had a drink or chewed tobacco in years. I'm more proud of my father now than I ever have been in my entire life."

The inquisitive party apparently didn't notice the extremely shocked looks on the faces of everybody around. My sister and I had ear-to-ear grins. Thick as a brick, though, the person had to ask one more question: "What made him change? Age?"

"No," my sister replied. "Death."

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is comedy.