Bad Jokes 101: How To Secure An F in Cultural Anthropology

Oh, another social casualty, Score one more for me
How could i forget? Mama said, "Think before speaking"

The scene is a familiar one, banal, soaking with predictability. A group of students sit in a stale class room, their eyes like dinner plates, stone-armed and freezing. Professor Dumbledorf drones on about the post-modern condition and the students, who twitch in nervous anticipation to check their facebook, unwittingly prove her point. The lecture slips slowly, like an old man into a warm bath, into the topic of modern communication.

Dumbledorf, clad in ill-fitting khakis and an unexplainable shaw, throws her professorial hands into the air and cries, “When I was an undergrad the last thing I had was email, much less a computer!”

A smile sneaks onto my face, and I begin telling myself to remain quiet. I tell myself to just sit there and worry about updating my profile, the Tony Danza show, anything... I tell myself to absolutely NOT say to the girl sitting next to me that it was hard to email without electricity.

My mouth opens, words begin to tumble out, my hands shooting up to cover it. They’re too late. And as always, I say loudly, “Well it was probably hard to email without electricity.”

The girl gives me a cold glance, eyes soupy with apathy.

The professor hears, of course. She looks angry, like that same old man sending back soup. I stare back, shrugging my shoulders majestically, offering a smile. This does not seem to work. This is my mistake. This is my life, slipping away one unfortunate joke after another.