BoxinRotz

Okay... Hammer is getting the top of the thread... I'll start it for ya buddy because I really don't wanna hijack another thread with this funny... but I'm going to quote you:

I so agree with you! I'd rather laugh my way through life on any issue even if it's inappropriate... Sometimes I just can't help myself! I'll turn around if I can't stop myself from looking like a total ass! There... I admitted it! lol

So anyways... I just wanted to tell all you peeps that I went to Wally World yesterday with my brother to pick up some ear plugs to sight the pig in. (that's his 7mag for rifle season... That's her real name.)

We were heading to the Sporting Goods when right after we passed the Toy aisle we came up on the Auto aisle. OMG... We found the perfect gift for Hubster! A pull start motorcycle! LMAO My brother and I just lost it as we were checking it out and I was sitting on it reminiscing of the good times we had on the Harley! If I had $700 to just blow, I'd so have that bike in my living room on Christmas Day! My brother said, what if he puts it through the pool and I paused and said, He'd probably kill himself on it! We were both laughing so hard!

Go ahead and laugh! Don't be ashamed... I'm not!

Hammer

wow. Was just going to put a note on that thread. Guess it must belong here, instead.

==================

This note is because of a PM I was sent about the laughing and joking stuff. No one complaining, just commenting on it, and I figured in these circles, it was due some explanation. Dunno.

The laughing stuff is partly troop training.
.
Army troops are of course scared when in hostile situations. But that which we can laugh at we do not need fear. Clear the fear, and it clears the mind. So you teach your troops -- along with all the requisite skills and survival methods (again, just like kids, huh?) to sort of laugh at the enemy or dangerous situations. It is sort of like bravado.

My particular twists on it probably come from my own childhood sexual abuse history. Some of my affects and emotions are sort of wired backwards or wrong.

I did notice the kids, like army troops, lost their fear of mom's problems and rehab when we could find something to laugh or joke about them.

So we find fun and they laugh and laugh -- not so much at Mom, but the situation. They made songs about all the tales of various addictions/addicts that spread across our families.

This is one of their favorites -- they sing it to the tune of the Addams Family.

The daddy's on narcotics,
The daughter is neurotic,
The son, he is psychotic,
The Addicts Family.

The mom is anorexic
They had a car, they wrecked it,
The family pet has been dissected,
The Addicts Family.

Gramma's Codependent,
When she has money -- she will send it
To the Addicts who all spend it
The Addicts Family.

Goes on about 10 more verses -- with Grandpa smoking' and now strokin' , Cousin Beth on Meth, On and on.

And the kids all laugh and laugh.

Just Joy -- No fear.

-------------------------

Of course for my "condition" daughter had to make up a song, as well.

She sings it like a jingle when I start losing my voice when I am happy.

Emotionally ********, that's my dad,
Cries when he is happy, laughs when he is sad.
Emotionally ********, that's my dad,
We love him.

honeypig

Hammer, "The Addict Family"?

Man, that is bizarre even for YOU!

And awfully funny....

BoxinRotz

That's awesome Hammer! lol

Upsetnneedhelp

But would this humor exist if your loved one had cancer? Making everything a joke is just another way to stay in denial.

Hammer

It was part of the show we were planning on putting on for the Welcome Home from Rehab Party last year that was quashed by wiser minds.

We have sort of a Dinner Theater thing -- that was when the kids would miss Mom/Mrs. Hammer the most. They still break into singing and laughing on nights when Chef Hammer is cooking and Mrs. Hammer is out.

Maybe sort of picture this clip below with Texas Twang -- just the Dad (me) is a former Army Officer (rather than an Austrian Navy Officer -- btw, wtf with an Austrian Navy, anyway? -- check a map), and a banjo.

-- we call ourselves the Von Trash Singers -- Sort of like the Von Trapps on Acid or something.


So long farewell - YouTube

BoxinRotz

I take it you never heard the expression:

Laughter is the best medicine!

If my dad had cancer (he does not) and I took a crack at him (a joke... ya know ha ha hee hee stuff), he'd laugh and give me some too. That's just the way we are.

It's easier to laugh through life than walk around with a stick up your ass.

Hammer

You follow I am not saying any of this is right (or wrong)?

This is all like paddling the family down a huge rapids in a canoe, big rocks all around, with no life vests, the kids cannot swim on their own, the boat is taking on water, we are all paddling like hell, and most of the time I do not even know it the boat is pointing up or down the river.

And I look to the shore and see all the Blue Haired 70 or 80 something year old Alananny Nymph Mermaid Cyrens smiling and waving and singing --

"Remember the adventure is in getting there -- not the destination."

And You Are Really Asking ME to Make Sense of ANY of it?

and I am just thinking WTF?

====================

As far as your Cancer observation --

Maybe check this movie out sometime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Moon_(film)

When Kaufman had cancer, many folks just thought he was joking.

Yurt

First, you should know that the Addams family jingle will forever be ruined for me. In First grade, we use that tune to learn the days of the week (There's Sunday and there's Monday, there's Tuesday and there's Wednesday...). Now the kiddos are going to be wondering why Mrs. T is grinning wildly as she sings it.

Yesterday, I stopped by my friend's apartment and we were discussing strategies to deal with depression (yes, watching the other thread as well), and he brought out a book for me to borrow. Then he headed back into the other room and brought out another book and told me that I needed to have some good laughs as well. It is a compilation of rejected cartoons that never made it to New Yorker Magazine. They were so gross, or inappropriate, and the editors deemed them unworthy of magazine publication. The cover is what set me rolling on the floor. I'm not really sure why, as it was sooo horrible. When I brought the book home, I was laughing out loud so much that DD came in to see what the fuss was. She and I howled over most of them and AH came in to see what was up as well. He found us hovering over said book, glared for about 5 seconds and slammed the door. DD and I started laughing all over again.
Below is the cover. Please don't demonize me, but it just cracked me up.
"The Rejection Collection"
Edited by Matthew Diffee



Hope the image is available...

honeypig

I don't know that making a joke necessarily means that the person making the joke denies the problem exists. I think it's more a way to refuse to allow the problem to cause you pain, or to cause you MORE pain.

It's a way to deflate things, to shrink them down to the correct proportions, to realize that the towering, terrifying monster shadow you see on the wall is really only the plastic toy animal sitting on the windowsill with a streetlight shining behind it.

As they say, "Blessed is he who can laugh at himself, for he shall never cease to be amused."

Carlotta

When we are able to have a good laugh at ourselves, we are on our way to recovery.
I for one enjoy Hammer's quirky humor and sometimes laughing is the best medicine.
I remember a post where I was ratting myself out for lapsing back into codie craziness and enabling and Hammer threatened to call the codie police on me LOL
That was just what I needed, not to have my hand held, being called on my bs (which I was aware of) or a pat in the back but just being able to have a good laugh helped put things back in perspective.

Upsetnneedhelp

At my sons 5th or 6th rehab the professionals there informed me that addiction was life or death for the addict and the family. Making jokes demeans the person who is suffering.

ladyscribbler

I think that it does. My ex husband passed away last July after years of battling cancer. Humor was always one of the ways we/he dealt with the grueling effects of cancer and treatment. There was no denying that he was sick, it was more of a coping mechanism. I'd tease him about his bald head, say he looked sexy with his new "Bruce Willis hair"- he'd respond by threatening to wear one of those rainbow clown afro wigs. I'd tell him he would have to get it cut into a high and tight to maintain Army appearance standards.
Even after we divorced (for reasons unrelated to his illness), we continued to coparent our son and used humor to deal with the ups and downs of life.
I've also seen t-shirts with mottos like "F--- cancer" and "Save second base/Save the boobies". So I don't think that humor and serious illness have to be mutually exclusive.

Carlotta

I am in recovery myself and you should check out an AA meeting sometimes, AAs got jokes

Hammer

So it sounds like you are starting to figure out that a fair amount of the "pros" in this field are more FUed than the customers?

Hammer

So much so that the AA meetings sometimes get laughing SO LOUD, that the (us) weepy, droopy Alanon meetings next door have to pause?

When I figured that out, was when I started coming out of the closet with this stuff.

I would sit and think -- Laugh with the Sinners (AA, as it were) OR Cry with the Saints (Alanon)?

Why should we not have laughter, too?

Carlotta

That s funny you wrote that because I remember when I started Al Anon, on Fridays my AA home group had their speaker meeting next door and their laughter was LOUD while our little codie group was very solemn
I d be thinking:
If freaking Ed could stay sober I would be over there having fun. It's his fault I am in Al Anon, he is ruining my recovery

Edited to add that about 15 minute into the Al Anon meeting I would take a bathroom break (aka an excuse to peek my head in AA) and see if by some miracle he had decided to attend AA

Carlotta

: I guess that's the codie equivalent of a drunk taking a big swig out of his paper bag at an AA meetinglmao

lillamy

Laughter is a fantastic survival mechanism.
I think there are no rules to surviving this BS trip. When my grandma got Alzheimer's we were laughing at her adventures - when she ran away and the cops found her and she called them "little whippersnappers" and told them she knew those woods like the back of her hand "since before your father was a naughty hint in his father's eye"... Grandpa was howling with laughter after wringing his hands and crying for hours.

It didn't in the least mean we didn't love her or respect her. Just that we turned a painful situation into something that we could handle. Just like grandma had done for us her entire life.

Seren

True story....so at one point, Mr. S told his alcoholic, crack addict, polysubstance abusing son that he had 30 days to move out (literally had to write an eviction notice in case the police were needed). He told his son that he would help with 6 months worth of rent at a place of his own under 3 conditions: 1) get and keep a job; 2) don't do anything to get arrested; and 3) no drinking or drugs. His son hemmed and hawed and made no real efforts to find someplace else to live.

The weekend he was to move out, the young man went on a crack bender, got arrested, didn't show up for work and lost his job.

We were not yet married, and the morning after his son's arrest, Mr. S thought he would be able to pack his things up and just hand them over to him once he got out of jail. That same morning, I looked at the jail website to find out more about what would happened, and it showed that he had been released! I called Mr. S to tell him, and he said "I know.....I just put a box on his head!"

So apparently the young man arrived back at the house sometime in the wee hours and when Mr. S went into his room to begin packing up his things, he did not realize the rumpled lump in the bed was anything other than sheets and a comforter--so he put an empty box on the bed right on his son's head! We did not laugh at the time, but we think it's hilarious now!