Dear Poor Lucky Me,
I work with a guy who keeps using “Happy Ending” as his big joke. I laughed the first 900,774,711,323,000,129 times he used it, but man, I can’t keep this up. Here are some examples (all “jokes” are accompanied by a sharp elbow thrust into the nearest warm body):
“I wish this meeting had a happy ending”
“I’d work on this more enthusiastically if I knew it came with a happy ending!”
“It’s not cheating if you call it a happy ending!”
Short of spitting in this guy’s face or doing a round-house kick to his knees, I don’t know how to stop this. I’m offended at the sloppiness and frequency of this joke. And as a happy ending enthusiast, I feel slightly embarrassed.
Signed,
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
Your colleague’s jokes are the comedy equivalent to water-boarding, and I don’t make torture jokes lightly. Unless I don’t have anything else to make jokes about. But in this case, the analogy is apt. Anyway, even reading those “jokes” made me punch my computer in fury, and now the I.T. guy is all annoyed at me. He was also really annoyed when I spilled a Slim Fast martini on my laptop though, so you know he’s completely unreasonable.
First of all, immediately stop laughing at the happy ending joke. In fact, when he says “happy ending” stop smiling, talking, and making eye contact. When he makes any other joke, scream laughing like he’s Billy Crystal. Next, when he elbows you scream “Ow” then fall to the floor rolling from side to side and moaning. If he (or anyone) ask what’s wrong just mumble incoherently for a minute or so, then walk around with an ice pack on the offended area for the next hour. Glare at the co-worker as often as possible. The final piece to the puzzle should come after a week of not laughing and faking injury:
Anytime he starts a joke that you know is going to end in “happy ending” start talking loudly over him. If he talks louder, you talk louder. If he gets annoyed, pull him aside and say your just trying to save his ass because you overheard some grumblings from H.R.
Unfortunately, you can count on him coming up with some equally stupid and offensive joke, but at least you can go back to getting hand jobs without embarrassment.
Sincerely,
Poor Lucky Me
