Dream of the formal joke

Among the many things I like to employ in moderation in this space is what I think of as the formal joke. This isn't the humor arising from context and natural stories. This is more like when someone comes up to you and says "I know a joke. Do you want to hear it?" 

That kind of joke.

I usually answer yes to that question. Yes I will hear your joke. Sometimes I've heard it. Sometimes I think it's funny. But mostly I listen, and smile, and say "That's not bad" like they've asked me to taste some milk they had in the refrigerator that's a day past expiration.

"Really, I can use it?"

"No one will die. I'm 90 percent sure."

I hope all that explains why I don't like to too frequently share here the formal jokes I've written.

I am even less inclined to recount any dreams I've had in this space. I think they have a strange relationship to authorship. Am I the author of a dream? I guess so. But it seems tainted somehow on that score by how I did it while sleeping. It's like a security guard nodding off in the night, causing a breaking and entering villain not to notice him, who then stumbles over the sleeping guard in the dark and is knocked unconscious in the fall. Is the security guard a hero? Er, possibly?, but they'd probably never quite feel fully like it was because of how good they are at their job. 

But what if I dream a joke?

Last night I dreamed an actual joke! I immediately thought "I must make a blog post of this joke!"

And so I sat down here to do so and I wrote what you've just read, planning all along to tell you this entirely not very funny joke that barely makes sense and was only even mildly funny in the dream. 

But now suddenly I understand: I have simply articulated here really good reasons not to tell you this joke.

And so you are spared.