Well, I have not been one of those funny guys. Not that I have been bad. It's just that I have been rather timid, a weakness I attribute to having had a suppressed childhood.
Not surprisingly, I wasn't that much humorous during my years at Starehe Boys' Centre where I had my high school and college education. Imagine during my entire Starehe years, I remember cracking only three jokes. Let me tell you one.
In 2005 when we were sitting for one music practical exam, there was a notice placed outside. It read:
EXAMINATIONS:Of course the calligrapher who printed that notice intended to warn passers-by not to trespass on the building where we were having our exam. But I interpreted it to mean that we, the students taking the exam, should not pass the examinations.
DO NOT PASS
I told Matthew Brooks, a talented volunteer teacher from England, my interpretation of the notice while pointing at it. He then burst out laughing. Cracking that joke remains one of my proudest high school achievements.
Although I had a suppressed childhood, I was brought up as a disciplined and morally upright boy thanks to the teachings I received in church as well as the beatings I endured at home and in school. I therefore never cracked off-color jokes in my teenage years.
It wasn't until I was an engineering student at JKUAT that I started telling dirty jokes in an attempt to be funny. And the first dirty joke I recall cracking was when I was admitted to Thika Nursing Home following my errant behavior at JKUAT in 2008.
A female nurse, who was about 50 by the look of her, wore a different uniform from that of other nurses. Curious to know her role in the nursing home, I asked her what she did, a question she declined to answer.
When I persisted in asking her what she did, she finally told me something along these lines, "Just observe what I am doing, watch where I am going and how I am doing my duties."
After she paused to see whether I had understood her, I asked, "Even when you go to the toilet?"
Obviously taken aback, she didn't reply to my weird question. She stayed silent in a manner that showed she was like, "What's wrong with this young man?"
Since then, I have cracked dirtier jokes. I even had the temerity to share dirty jokes with born-again Christians, probably because such jokes make people laugh the most.
Now that I have matured in Christ, I have refrained from telling off-color jokes as Billy Graham told Christians in his best-selling book, The Secret of Happiness.
My beloved reader, I urge you to also crack only clean jokes. Don't let your desire to be funny overshadow your responsibility to reflect God's character to the world.
*********************
RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story on cracking clean jokes, you might also enjoy another one on "Developing a Sense of Humor" which I wrote four years ago. Just click that link in blue to dive straight into the story.
