Know your audience

It is such a what-the-fuck world.

Yesterday I got a call from an unknown 202 number, which turned out to be Nick, who was in a locked-down federal building near the Navy Yard, not allowed to use his phone. He borrowed a land line to let me know he was fine.

He was, thank God, not in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, 12 other people, who went to work on a seemingly-normal Monday, were shot to death by a gunman, who was himself killed.

It was a day of obsessively checking the news and Twitter as the reports came in. Navy Yard is right across town from us. The first I heard of the shooting was a friend who works there posting on Facebook about being on lockdown.

So many federal buildings and schools were on lockdown. There might be two more shooters on the loose.

Also, when did lockdown come into common parlance? And shelter-in-place? These terms sound so normal now.

As I said, what the fuck?

Random, terrifying violence and destruction, and as it is going on and the death toll is mounting, on Twitter people are insisting that guns are not the problem and this is why you should be able to take guns to work and the shooter was a black guy and if Obama had a son it would look like him and President Obama is going to use this for political gain and and and.

It just made me so sad and so angry and so want to throat punch so many people.

Last night, Dana posted the following on Facebook, and it seemed just right: "Fourth-grade jokes are a welcome relief on days with heavy, incomprehensible news."

I immediately offered Jordan's favorite: What does a train that has a cold say? Ah-choo choo!

Heh.

So then I turned around and tried to tell Jordan one of those jokes I'd just read.

"Jordan! Why did the chicken cross the playground?"

"Chicken!? Why is a chicken on the playground?"

"There's not really a chicken...It's just a joke. To be funny."

"Oh. Are we going to the playground?"

"Not tonight. You want to know the answer?"

"Of the chicken? OK."

"To get to the other slide! You know, going from one slide...to..." 

FLAT SILENCE, with a look of MAMA, YOU'RE AN IDIOT. (Coupled with the realization, on my part, that you need to know the chicken crossing the road in the first place, and Mama, you're an idiot.)

"Jordan, would you like some orange juice in a DOO-DOO CUP?"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" (Beams at me for my brilliance.)