and now...the highly anticipated...
Why My Brother is Funny (part 2)

well, my experiment went as expected. I asked all of you (who know Adam) to give a story about why he's funny. It is plain to see that we are all in one accord. This is the underlying principle of Adam's humor...he's not funny because he's trying to be, he's funny just by being who he is! Adam isn't going around trying to get laughs by telling jokes or being overly sarcastic, he's just being himself, a person who operates just a little differently than the rest of us. Not a bad thing, just different. One thing can be sure, when Adam is the funniest, it isn't really anything intentional, it just is what it is. Now, let me get to my story.

First of all, I must make the disclaimer that I did not doctor any of the following photographs in any way other than what is obvious (e.g. blocking our address, highlighting something specific). Of course, if you know Adam, the following story won't be anything you wouldn't expect and therefore you'll realize that I didn't need to fabricate any of this. With that out of the way here we go. Let the laughing begin.

It all started one day when I was taking out the trash. I lifted the trash bag from the trash can and, to my surprise, I saw two unopened envelopes in the bottom of the otherwise clean can. Curiously I pulled them out and immediately knew that they were from Adam. One of the letters was addressed to me, and the other was addressed to 'Yoshima' [pause].

Yoshima, or Yoshi, is our dog. Actually, it is Adam's dog that lives with us inside the apartment. [resume]

I noticed that not only was this a letter addressed to the dog, but it was stamped and postmarked. Check out the first picture to see that this was in fact mailed to our house from somewhere. Getting ready for a laugh I opened the letter.

Inside the envelope was a 'thank you' card from Rhodes Furniture [pause].

Adam works at Rhodes and I am assuming has immediate access to thank you cards designated for people who have bought something from the store. A little customer follow up probably goes a long way when that guy comes back for a matching coffee table [resume].

The second picture highlights the fact that this is a card from Rhodes.

When i opened the card, i knew it wouldn't be blank. But I didn't know exactly what Adam would write to the dog. As I unfolded the card and saw was was scribed inside, I lost it. I was laughing out loud. Actually, John was there too, we had a good laugh about it. As you can see by the third picture, the message that Adam sent to our dog was simply, 'bark.' Now that's funny.

The incident in itself is pretty funny, but there are a few factors that make it even funnier, and they both have to do with the fact that Adam is not being intentionally funny here.

I mentioned in the above story that I knew both that the letters were from Adam, and that they would have something written in them. I also knew before I opened them that they would be 'thank you' cards from Rhodes Furniture. How did I know this? Because Adam has done this before. So you see, Adam isn't sending these messages because he sat down and thought it would be funny to send the dog a note, he was simply bored (at work) and that's what he decided to do with his spare time. Once before, Adam sent two similar cards to both John and I and the message on the inside was, 'i'm bored.' Later he told us that he sent those to us because he was bored.

So I know that Adam pulled this little stunt because he's bored and not because he's trying to be funny. But think about this. I found these letters at the bottom of the trash can...unopened. This only tells me that Adam never meant anyone to find these letters. He got the mail the day that the letters arrived and simply threw them away. He didn't let us see them, he didn't mention them, nothing. They were not intended for any kind of comic relief, they weren't really intended for anything other than filling some down-time at work. That, to me, is funny.

The point is this. Those of us who have got to know Adam have enjoyed his friendship and also have enjoyed his unique way of relating to us. His sense of humor is not very much like mine, and for such reasons, I find him to be one of the funniest people that I know. Thank you for sharing your stories. I hope you have enjoyed mine.

p.s. - in case you are wondering what he wrote to me in the other unopened 'thank you' card, it said, 'shama lama ding dong!' ~lol