Thoughtless for the Day

A few days back, I needed a new drill bit, so I swung by the hardware store around the corner. When the clerk informed me that the drill bit I required was out-of-stock, I quipped, "Well, it looks like little Billy won't be getting his fillings this week." The clerk then gave me that look: the look that says. "What sort of sick individual would even think something like that, let alone actually say it."

It's the same look I get whenever I mention that I have a deep-seated hatred for NPR's Car Talk.

I like to think that I'm a nice guy. I'm kind to animals; I never talk down to kids; my wife says that I'm a good husband; and I enjoy the simple pleasures in life, like a cup of yerba mate and reading my friend Brian's thoughts on that day's episode of Divorce Court. So why is it that I all I have to do is even hint that Cah Tawk is the least funny thing to grace the airwaves since FDR's wheelchair ignited during one of his fireside chats, and suddenly I'm having that "Joe Pesci in Goodfellows" conversation:

Friend: How can you hate Car Talk? I love Car Talk. Everybody loves Car Talk!

Me: Why? Why do you like it?

Friend: I dunno. 'Cuz it's funny?

Me: Funny how?

Friend: I dunno. It's just...funny.

Me: Oh, I see. So it amuses you. It's your clown.

Now, it's usually at this point - right about when I'm ready to pull a gun - that someone feels the need to remind me that humor is subjective and rarely, if ever, do two people see eye-to-eye on what is funny. I couldn't agree more. I'm am not an expert on what is funny. What I am is an expert on what is not funny: Schindler's List, for example is not funny (despite the presence of some very silly German accents). Puppy mills are not funny. Cardinal Bernard Law getting away scot-free was not funny. And Car Talk is not funny.

Unlike the people who enjoy Car Talk but can never seem to provide a coherent reason as to why they find it amusing, I can tell you exactly why it isn't funny: Car Talk labors under the misguided notion that "regular people" laugh at dumb humor in much the same same way that the Yuppies behind A Prairie Home Companion have deluded themselves into thinking that residents of rural communities have a rustic, folksy charm that those of us who have actually encountered them refer to as "Cretanism".

In other words, and I'm sorry if this offends any of my friends, I suspect that the people who laugh at Car Talk are, in a way, saying, "'Dewey, Cheatum, & Howe!' Hahaha! See? I'm not so stuffy and well educated that I'm not above laughing at dumb jokes." It's like when a nuclear physicist laughs at a Three Stooges short. He or she knows damn well that the Three Stooges are slightly less funny than Stevie Wonder performing a colonoscopy, but they laugh anyway in a fruitless attempt to connect with... I dunno...people who laugh at the Three Stooges, I guess.

The truth is that you are above laughing at dumb jokes. That's nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, you should take pride in that. It doesn't make you a stick-in-the-mud or a snob if you don't laugh at fart jokes. It just makes you an adult.

And who the Hell takes automotive advice from people who live in Boston anyway? Have you ever been to Boston? If so, did you see how the people there drive? It's like asking a Scotsman for culinary tips.

Normally, I would just ignore Car Talk in much the same manner as I ignore American Routes (AKA "The White offspring of the Privileged Class listen to The Blues), but the problem is that, here in Philly, Car Talk immediately follows On The Media and This American Life (two shows that are roughly six billion times more funny and informative than Car Talk could ever hope to be) - which is like following Monty Python and The Young Ones with Benny Hill. This means that as soon as TAM ends, I have to leap across the room and turn off my radio before either one of the humorously-challenged hosts of Car Talk can utter a single syllable. Silencing them is well worth the effort.