Sense of humour

I've always thought that you get your sense of humour via osmosis, you know, from listening to the grown-ups when you're a kid. I've also always thought that Londoners and Scousers (people from Liverpool) have the same sense of humour because it was derived from poverty. The poverty of the 1800's, when nobody had anything and you either laughed or cried. Laughing in the face of adversity as it were.

Just before I came to Canada I was a taxi driver in a small English town called Colchester.

It was one Sunday evening, a night when it seemed that everyone wanted to stay at home, which left all the cab drivers standing around the office waiting for a fare.

The controller (radio guy) started up with a story about a soldier.

I should mention at this point that Colchester is a "garrison" town. There are 6,000 soldiers stationed there at any one time and also a huge housing estate for families.

His story was about a squaddie (soldier) who had attemted to park a tank on his own.

He went on too explain how it takes two people to park a tank as there are no rear view mirrors, So you need somone to tell you where the hell you're going when you're going backwards. Well this young squaddie had decided that he could do it on his own. Not a good decision. He flattened a Land Rover. Totally obliterated it.

Now there was one other Londoner in that office. His name was Chris, if I recall, Short fella, big hair.

The controller, after lamenting the woes of the squaddie that couldn't drive, finished with " he's going to have to pay for that Land Rover, every month, out of  his wages."

Sitting in the corner of the office Chris piped up with "F##k me, no wonder a Captain goes down with his ship"

Which reduced me to fits of laughter. Just me. All the other fellas looked over with a questioning look.

It seems the folks in Colchester didn't see the humour.

And now to Sechelt.

We bought some cabinets from Ikea. There were not enough bolts to bolt them together. So to the lumberyard I went. I was wandering the aisles when a very nice fella, with a badge that said his name, asked me if  needed any help. I briefly explained my dilema and and off to the "bolt isle" we went.

As we passed the front counter, where there were five people standing behind it, he said "how long do you want them?"
I responded "Well, forever."

He turned at looked at me with a quizzical smile and started to talk. I looked over at the counter and of the five people standing there, only the young blonde chick was laughing. He said "no, I mean, what length?"

When you have to explain 'em, it's just not worth it.

The Blonde chick must be from London.