IT ISN'T FUNNY, McGEE!

A recent newspaper had an article in it entitled, "Women Enjoy Jokes More Than Men." Right off the bat the headline was a little confusing because did they mean "....More than Men Do" or did they mean women didn't like men as much as they like jokes. (I've known women in both camps.)

Anyway, having written more than a few headlines in my day, I know it isn't always possible to get real accurate with the space one is given.

But that really isn't the point. This article said that a study led researchers to conclude that women are a bit more analytical than men are when it comes to digesting a joke. They kind of hold a response back until they "process" or analyze whether or not they think it is funny, and when they finally decide it is funny, their response is greater than that of men, who simply assume it is going to be funny in the first place.

The article went on and on, talking about "executive" functions of the brain (the article didn't explain that). It also said the test was conducted by showing 70 black and white cartoons to 10 women and 10 men, all of whom had MRI's of the brain being taken as they were looking at these cartoons.

When I read this my first thought was that if I had to look at 70 cartoons in a row, my MRI would be as flat as an EKG on a dead person! I do not normally look at cartoons and I never read the Comics section of the newspaper. However, on occasion I will see a single cartoon that I can laugh at. I do wonder how the MRI would show my boredom. But I digress.

This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Seems to me they could be spending their money a little more wisely. Those are my tax dollars being played with. Who cares if I laugh at a joke more heartily than Jerry laughs at it? I laugh at jokes more easily if there is someone else with me laughing at it too, or I laugh a little harder if it is really funny and I've just had a glass of wine. The National Institute of Health is lucky that I wasn't one of the 10 women participants; I probably would have skewed their findings all to pieces.

Nevertheless I enjoyed reading the article that morning because I laughed at how silly it all was!