Slow on the uptake
When I was a little girl, my friend David Rosenberger told me "Can't tell you a joke on Wednesday for fear you'll laugh in church on Sunday." I think he must have heard adults say that about someone because the jokes David and I told were of the knock-knock variety, and I got them.
I was a hick from WV on my way to college, alone, and I had a layover in NYC. I went to a cafe for a sandwich, and a friendly waiter said, "You know what French dressing is?" "Yes sir." "And Italian dressing?" "Yes sir." "Well, then, what is Irish dressing?" I didn't know, and he said "Mayo!" Well, I laughed politely, but I didn't get it. I knew Mayo was a county in Ireland, but what that had to do with salad dressing was beyond me. After a while up north, I realized that "mayo" meant what I called "maynaze," and the joke was pretty funny.
I was grown and married when a nice old man in the grocery checkout line asked me if I wanted to hear a joke. "Sure." "Two men walked into a bar, but the third man ducked."
I laughed and laughed, but I didn't get it. I went home and told my husband, and he explained it to me.
I loved cowboys and cowgirls when I was a really little girl, and my father made up endless stories for me about the hero Three-gun Smith (who "ambled along, lazy-like" through his adventures). Three-gun always got in big trouble when the bad guy took his two pistols from Three-gun's holster. Things looked pretty bad, and then in the nick of time, Three-gun reached around his back and pulled out that third gun.
I was 60 years old when I realized where that third gun had been stashed.
My father was one hell of a story teller.
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