The coolest uncool and the techno-shame ironies of wet suits

My son loves to tell dumb jokes.

Some times they are funny, sometimes we (we = husband + daughter + myself) listen and then moan, and sometimes we just ignore him.

The last response (ignoring) is a particularly well developed specialty of H.'s big sister.

Drives the boy wild. He always asks her "Do you get it?" and she sighs and responds "Yes, but you are NOT funny." His disappointment is so clear. Sometimes his jokes, or at least their reception, make me sad.

Maybe jokes are never funny if you have to ask the recipient if they get it?

Aw HELL.

Is The Laundress all wet?

Needing a cold shower of reality?

Is she a fool of a person

...or simply a foolish tool?

-- unable to realize how painfully she represents the worst bits of the most ordinary underbelly of middle class, middle aged, middle America?

Damn.

I am acquainted with a person who is almost universally well-regarded as wholesome and friendly.

A chipper, look-on-the-sunny-side kind of person.

My life-experience has taught me that these are the most lethal and vicious snakes in the garden. I trust this wholesome person not one inch.

But whatever. Miss Little Merry Sunshine and I were having a chat. And she giggled at me... "ooh, you use a LYCOS email account? ha ha, I haven't seen one of those since the dark ages, they are even older than AOL email addies!"

Ooops, that gave me all kinds of pause.

Like, Ms. LMS was calling me out on my un-coolness.

This was most painful: because the Lycos email for my blogging laundry lady persona was calculatedly, deliberately meant to be an ironic statement. In that teenage sophisticate way that my daughter sometimes wears the color pink? My understated joke was missed by Ms. Sunshine and perhaps also the rest of the world? (other than those fashion-forward Balkan pornographers, of course!)

So, by being called out... do I lose all of the joke by going nudge, nudge, wink, wink? Should I just clam up?

Decided Ms. Sunshine could continue thinking me UNcool. So I just blushed. Or maybe glowered. In her pretty world, these pinkish/reddish colors are one and the same.

NYT Op-Ed columnist David Brooks (the cleverest and most likable neo-con writer that I am familiar with) had a painfully funny piece earlier this month, King of the Memes. Here is a teasing bit to jog your memory if you read it a few weeks back -- or to get you to read more (in case you missed it):

Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it. (In this era, MySpace is the new leisure suit and an AOL e-mail address is a scarlet letter of techno-shame.)

Wickedly, Brooks at once nailed and just sailed right by whatever yours truly is up to with blogging. Read it, what do you think? Brooks made me wince and giggle and wonder some more about what I am up to blathering away at having this blog.

Guess I will just stick with what I know best: laundry.

Here is something wonderful, just discovered by me (although millions of other bloggers claim first dibs, hey-- I am not trying for a home run or a scoop here!)

Check out an amazing merino wool suit you can rinse in the shower, drip dry overnight and wear again the next morning. Perfect for anyone caught in a smoky bar after work. Um, if smoking is allowed in your local taverns.

And you happen to wear suits.

your (naked) unfunny Laundress