Today is my brother’s birthday.
One of the greatest moments in comedy that I can remember is from a time I was with my brother. We were maybe 13 and 14, and we were going into a movie theater, and I guess he decided that he badly needed to blow his nose. Having nothing handy, he cupped his bare hands over his nose and blew into them.
From the sound alone, you could tell this was a solid evacuation. A productive blow, as a doctor might say.
As a non-doctor, I would say it was real mooshy sounding.
Then he held out his hands in front of him. You see, the thing is, when you don’t have anything to blow your nose in and then decide to use your hands, you don’t so much solve the problem as trade one problem for another. The original problem was about blowing a nose, the new problem is about where to wipe your hands.
I started laughing. “You’re totally screwed,” I said. “Should have thought that one through.”
Without pause, he moved his hands around his hips and stuck them in his back pockets, wiping on the way up.
I laughed my ass off.
It wasn’t the grossness of it, although that played a part. It wasn’t the Carrot-Top-style problem-solving that got me.
What really killed me was that the way he kept walking towards the theater, the way he shrugged just a little before he did it, the way he jammed his hands in his pockets without considering for a second, it was all like he’d planned it from the start.
So happy birthday to my brother, the biggest bullshitter and one of the funniest people I’ve been lucky enough to know.