What we need the most is to laugh, yet
our humorless society wants to criminalize wit.
By
William Marvel
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1154&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
Recently
a young man with a mischievous sense of humor walked into our local Wal-Mart
wearing an orange jump suit and a pair of handcuffs. He approached a clerk and
asked if he could buy a hacksaw, probably anticipating some amusement at the
store employees’ momentary puzzlement, but some humorless Wal-Mart worker
called the police. Now the young man faces a charge of "disorderly
conduct"—a charge the state concocted to facilitate the prosecution
of people who haven’t really committed a crime.
What the jokester forgot was that people who work at Wal-Mart are trained to
view everyone as criminals. Anyone who doubts that need only shop there, and
wait to be accosted between the cash register and the front door by the Receipt
Nazis, who arbitrarily insult selected customers by demanding proofs of
purchase from whatever class of person excites their particular prejudices.
Wal-Mart reputedly harbors just as little trust for its employees as for its
customers, which makes it easier to understand such instinctive suspicion.
Still, someone with a little discretion might have wondered why the young
man’s jump suit lacked jail stenciling, or how an escaped prisoner would
have the cash to buy a hacksaw, or why a fugitive would linger long enough in a
public establishment for the police to arrive. Maybe someone was desperate for
an employee-of-the-week award, for vigilance and initiative.
Presumably the real complaint entails the police time that was wasted in
responding to the call, but is that entirely the fault of the prankster or of
the clerk who failed to get the joke? Of course the official response would be
to praise the Wal-Mart clerk for doing precisely the right thing, lest
criticism discourage the next citizen from calling in a legitimate report. We
here in the land of the free are, after all, supposed to be watching each other
like hawks.
Large digital signs hang over the highways for a 50-mile perimeter outside our
national capital, offering a toll-free number at which anyone can leave
anonymous tips of suspicious activity. That line must be busy constantly.
Suspicious activity seems the norm down there, at least to a provincial like
me, although many of the suspicious characters are simply trying to amuse
themselves and their fellow citizens. The pestiferous mime, the man walking the
invisible dog, the street-corner juggler, and the sidewalk musician have all
got to be breaking some sort of law, but more to the point they might all be
disguising illicit ulterior motives.
A prime example of misdemeanor mirth is the man in the George W. Bush mask, who
flexes bloody plastic claws at tourists’ children and snarls "I want
you for the U.S. Army." Not only does he defame our peerless leader, but
he covers up his identity, and if that isn’t suspicious, what is? Surely
he must be liable to federal prosecution, especially since he perpetrates his
humor inside the District of Columbia,
where the infliction of cruel jokes remains the sole prerogative of Congress.
How do they get away with it? Last October, a congressional staffer on his way
to a Halloween party brought a toy handgun into the Longworth House
Office Building
in his costume bag, That initiated a lockdown of the entire building and a
massive search when the xray machine belatedly revealed the shape of a pistol.
Even in that strict and paranoid atmosphere, however, no one was arrested. Last
year a student in one of our local schools scribbled a bomb threat that led to
the waste of substantial municipal resources, which he evidently knew would
happen because of similar incidents at the high school; that student was
reportedly identified, but if that resulted in any criminal or even civil
action the public has not been informed of it.
It would therefore seem a minor tragedy if a kid who was merely trying to
provoke people to hilarity with a harmless stunt were brought before the bench
because of it. Alan Funt did as much, and worse, for Candid Camera. If each of
us who would stoop to humor must first stop and consider every literalist
simpleton who might deem it worthy of drastic action, those with wits enough to
appreciate good jokes will be forever starved of them. The greatest pity is
that what the majority of people on this planet need most these days is a good
laugh.
William Marvel is a free-lance writer and U.S. Army veteran living in northern New Hampshire. His books
include Andersonville: The Last Depot
and Lee's Last Retreat: The Flight to
Appomattox. You can send your comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Posted Wednesday, August 31, 2005
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