Population: One. Supervised by a Committee of Twelve-Year-Old Boys.
Lisa recently bought me a hat that reads: “I’m Dave. I’m doing Dave things.” It may be the most accurate psychological assessment ever embroidered onto a baseball cap.
The funny part is that everyone who knows me laughed when they saw it. They understood immediately. They didn’t need an explanation. Because “doing Dave things” is, apparently, a recognizable condition.
I’ve spent enough years on this planet to realize that most people don’t experience the world quite the way I do. Before you begin composing a sympathy card, don’t.
I’m not complaining.
I’m simply offering visitors a guided tour. The defining feature of life inside my head is that it is relentlessly, almost inconveniently, funny. Not because life itself is always funny. Because my brain insists on finding humor in places where it has absolutely no business looking for it.
A perfectly serious meeting.
A conversation in line at the grocery store.
Someone choosing exactly the wrong word.
An accidental double meaning.
A mental image that appears from nowhere.
A terrible dad joke that no rational adult should ever think.
Somewhere, deep inside my head, an immature comedy writer immediately jumps to attention and says, “I’ve got something.” The difficult part isn’t thinking of the joke. The difficult part is deciding whether civilization would be improved by sharing it.
Usually…No.
Sometimes…Absolutely.
And occasionally my facial muscles vote before the executive branch has completed its review. I’ll suddenly smirk. Or giggle. Or laugh out loud. The people around me naturally assume they’re missing something. Most of the time, they are. Even if I explain it, the joke often isn’t nearly as funny as my reaction to it.
At some point, I’ve accepted that I frequently become the joke. Fortunately, I’m perfectly comfortable with that arrangement. In fact, I’ve noticed something over the years. When I laugh uncontrollably, people often start laughing too—not because they understand what amused me, but because genuine amusement is contagious.
They aren’t laughing at my joke. They’re laughing at the guy who can’t keep himself together.
That’s fair.
College friends remember Kevin Slider and me sitting in the Tennessee Tech cafeteria laughing until we could barely breathe. Decades later, during a recent leadership off-site, I caught myself doing the same thing with colleagues between meetings.
Different people. Different stage of life. Same Dave. I suppose that’s reassuring.
One thing I’ve learned is that every person lives inside a private world that no one else completely sees. Mine just happens to be furnished with an endless supply of puns, absurd observations, improbable mental pictures, and commentary that would make a middle-school boy proud.
It’s crowded in here. The residents are not always mature. They are rarely quiet.
So if you’ve ever caught me grinning during a serious discussion, chuckling at apparently nothing, or wearing a hat that says, “I’m Dave. I’m doing Dave things,” now you know.
I’m not laughing because I don’t take life seriously. I’m laughing because my mind found another ridiculous connection before the rest of me could stop it.
Some people have a poker face. I have a running commentary. And after fifty-five years, I’ve decided that’s not such a bad way to travel through life.
Besides…
Somebody has to keep the twelve-year-olds employed.
AI Disclaimer: No artificial intelligence was harmed in the making of this essay. The author’s natural intelligence remains under investigation, particularly the portion responsible for laughing at his own jokes.
