Finding the Funny

or Kyle’s Comedy Corner

Every morning I walk into Kyle’s room and flip on the lights. Then I turn off his sleep music and nightlight and pull the covers off his face.

“Morning, bud. You need a minute?”

He always does. I usually give him three. Five if I get lost in a Twitter thread. But then I go back to his room and if he’s still in bed (which he usually is) I pull the covers off his entire body.

“It’s time to get up, bud. Make sure you pee, wash your hands, and then get dressed and come down for breakfast.”

Of course, it stays darker later these days so that doesn’t help anything. But it does mean that Halloween is right around the corner, so both Kyle and Ella are gearing up to mainline the treats. But they know nothing of the tricks.

Old man voice…

“Back in my day we had to tell a joke or perform an illusion to get some candy. Some of us became contortionists. We shaped our bodies into pretzels or a clove hitch for full size Marathon bars.”

Jokes, actually*. We had to tell jokes. I’m from the center of the universe, or what people refer to as West Des Moines, Ia. For Halloween, we’d get…