I don’t know what I would do without a sense of humor about  myself.

Oh, wait. Yes I do. I would do things like…well, like take everything personally.

I would probably also second guess everyone else’s motives for laughing around me. I would assume that people are laughing at me. I would believe that everyone thinks I’m a fool and a loser. I would convince myself that people — friends included — make it their purpose to crap on my day.

I would get along with nobody.

Because if I don’t laugh at myself, then nobody else is allowed to laugh at me. That’s how it goes, right?

I don’t know whether it is possible to “learn” a sense of humor about onself. I just know that if I couldn’t laugh at myself — including laughing with others when I’ve accidentally done something funny — I’d be friendless.

Because I’d be sour.

A party pooper.

This I know about me: I am a goofball, and sometimes clueless; I make careless mistakes and I sometimes don’t get the obvious jokes. For instance, I wore camouflage pants to work one day, and as he walked toward me, the Head Dude (they don’t like to be called our “bosses”) said, “Oh no! I can’t see anything but a torso!”

“What?” I asked, totally confused about what he was talking about.

“You’re wearing camouflage pants,” he said in passing.

Oh…Duh! Laughter. I shook my head as I walked on. How’d I miss that?

I wish I were funnier, quick-witted like my husband or my daughters, or like my sister Jole’, or my friend Cathy at church; I do a lot of funny things accidentally, but on purpose — not so much.

Instead, I am funny in my head.

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

© Alexa Lopez, 2009