Intense

Puns are almost never funny, but sometimes they take on a life of their own. My friend Justin has developed a habit of responding to anyone claiming something to be "intense" with "just like camping." What started as a stupid pun about tents, became a normal part of vocabulary. The analogy grew to include other things in tents, such as the circus. It got to the point where instead of saying something was intense, I would describe it as being like camping. This, of course, was funny. My roommate Joe would regularly engage in these jokes. But I had no idea how funny the joke really was until today.

We were all at a Memorial Day BBQ enjoying a beautiful yard, wonderful food, and a fierce game of bocce ball. One particularly close toss elicited a "this round is intense" comment from the people watching. This, of course, required the now obligatory "like camping" response. Someone also threw out a follow-up "or the circus." Cory, roommate of Justin, added a new one of "those windshield repair places in the parking lot." This thoroughly confused Joe as to why something so stupid would be considered "intense." He disagreed with this statement, arguing that while he could see camping as an intense activity, and the circus was obviously intense, a windshield repair station clearly had nothing in common with those. At this point he asked, for future reference, how one could determine if something met the requirements of being intense enough to be mentioned. After a long pause and a stare I realized this wasn't a joke. He actually completely missed the running pun for the last three months and assumed it was just an inside joke. My rather cautious reply was "ummmm, it takes place in a tent." About a second later when this realization dawned on poor Joe, the look on his face was priceless. Unfortunately for him, the look on everyone else’s' face was pure hysteria. Thanks for the hardest laugh I've had in a while!