Davey’s mommy has some interesting things to say about irony............
People rarely know that I am joking, and the stuff I do mean seems to be hard enough for most to swallow.
I think I know how she feels. I saw a doctor once (the $5 health dept. doctor, so maybe I wasn’t expecting too much from him, but really.....) when I thought I was coming down with strep throat. I feeling sick and quite rocky from having been up most of the night with a sick child and I made what I thought was a game attempt at good humor saying something along the lines of “some days it’s unfortunate to wake up.....” So instead of an instant strep test and a penicillin prescription, I was being referred for a psychiatric evaluation. It was hard to maintain the good humor while explaining that it was just a lame joke. Maybe he just had to cover his derriere in case I did come to a bad end that day; he could point to the chart and say he had referred me to the “third floor.” [Third floor is a family code for any kind of mental health treatment - based on erroneous the notion that all hospitals have their psych units on the third floor. Not true. But try debating that with someone who insists that Lake Forest Hospital doesn’t have a psych unit because is a two story hospital.........] It was strep.

It’s too bad it isn’t easier to assess the people with little sense of irony, humor, whatever. Then we could be more careful when speaking with them. It wouldn’t be easy - just like talking to someone who can only understand monosyllables. As Lisa Simpson said, “It’s not easy being a Spaulding Gray in a Rick Dees world!”