Funny AF Woman #1

HEATHER BREBAUGH has answers to the Good Humor questionnaire

What were your life events that lead you to realize, “Hey, I’m pretty funny.”

Well, I’m an introvert, so being a joke teller isn’t in my playbook.

When I worked as a communication trainer I used to walk around and introduce myself to students before the training started, mostly to help them relax. They came from all over the country, so there were plenty of opportunities to make silly comments about locations, sports teams, travel, life in general. Things like, “Oh, you’re from Pittsburgh? I’m sorry.” Over the years of doing this, I got a lot more comfortable just chatting with strangers and saying funning things to help them be comfortable too.

I’m clean funny. Not dirty funny. Maybe a by-product of too many showers or possibly my Brit mom (see below) whose big anger burst was “bloody hell.”

My big swearish word: Ratzlefratz.

People now seem to use F…k as just a random word, part of every sentence. Why? It loses its magnitude. When I say “F…k” I want it to be more like E.F. Hutton. Or like I’m yodeling into a large canyon and it just reverberates everywhere. Like a statement piece of jewelry.

So when I saw the title for your community Funny AF Women, my mind started churning out alternative possibilities. Funny And Friendly Women; Funny And Fun Women. It probably kept me up for a couple of hours – there are lots of AF possibilities. I definitely went down the rabbit hole on this.

I have fun coming up with funny things to say as part of the conversation of the moment. I’m not a center of attention and tell a joke person, I just like to slide in funny comments based on where the conversation is going. I don’t know, is that humor? Is that funny?

I’m trying to hold back my washing machine, which has gone rogue and is attacking me across the laundry room floor. I won… barely.

Did your parents encourage your funny side?

My Mom was a Brit, stiff upper lip… if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. She did funny things, like putting a broom stick down my back and books on my head so I’d have good posture. That kept me on the straight and narrow.

And there were funny stories about her upbringing. She had a pet mongoose.

My Dad thought lots of things were funny. He just didn’t take things too seriously. His humor was the “kind” kind. My nickname for him was Twinkle Toes.

To show you his funny side…his plane crash landed on the way to his wedding (in India). He had the wedding cake with him. He got a friend to drive him the rest of the way in a jeep and arrived with a somewhat tilted cake and a day late.

When my Dad met my Mom at an officer’s club in India, he was smitten. He wanted to dance with her all night. But they had this thing called ‘the lemon dance’. There was one lemon and whoever had it could cut in to dance with anyone. Dad went outside and bought a small bushel of lemons. The rest is history.

How did you nurture your funny side?

I didn’t try. To be honest, during my first marriage my mother-in-law was so mean that I mostly just tried to stay quiet and out of the way. You know you’re being targeted when her kids even say to you, “I know she’s mean to you, but I figure better you than me.” Lots of years of not funny. After we split life got way funnier.  

Don’t ask me to tell a joke – like a scripted thing. I’ll suck. But let me read something someone has written and I can do some fun wordplay. Or let me write and I can be funny, especially by the 3^rd edit.😁

My conversational humor is unplanned, playing off what people say and the topics being discussed. My written humor doesn’t start out planned, it seems to just happen, either as I am writing or when I’m editing. Sometimes I think of stuff in the night. Sometimes I actually remember it.

I love using humor in my writing. It didn’t start out that way. I was WAY too nervous. But little by little the funnies just crept in. When people didn’t nuke me, I kept at it.  

Being slightly funny makes me feel vibrant and alive. I think it has been in there all these years, just squished by the shyness and the uncertainty until finally, I just didn’t care. As Wayne Dyer said, “What other people think about you is none of your business.” Thank you, Wayne.

I like humor to be part of how I live my life. Not just words or funny stories. For example, when living in Phoenix we had a small rat visitor with a half tail who decided to make his home in our garage. He’d pop out sometimes, then scurry behind the cabinets. I nicknamed him Herky. I didn’t exactly want him for a pet, but also didn’t want to kill him, so I bought some caramels and a little Hav-A-Hart cage. Turns out rats love caramels. I heard a noise in the garage and when I opened the door I caught him red handed, in the cage, wide eyes, clutching a big gooey caramel. Sweet revenge.  We took him a few blocks away to the golf course and let him go. Of course he came back – he was carrying a caramel homing device, I just didn’t know it.

Do you think you may have inherited your funny bone? A funny uncle? Who? Were you close with that person or heard stories about them? Like what? Share.

Hmm. Can you inherit funny from your husband? I think so. He injects me with conversational humor, and he actually laughs at things I say. Wow. Now my bones are much funnier. Before, they were just bones.

Bill and me

Did being funny ever get in the way of a close relationship?

Nope. Although I’m sure I’ve said things that I thought were funny that weren’t. We watched all of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I can see how funny can stick a fork in an otherwise good relationship.

If you’re in a partnership, is he or she funny? Was/Is humor a requirement?

Oh yes. My husband, Bill, is funny. One of the cool things that has come from his being funny and just saying things (I call it JSS…just says shit) is that it has encouraged me to be freer with things I say. Remember, I was raised by a plucky Brit and walked around with a broom down my back. Bill has an ‘outside voice’ and an ‘inside voice’. Sometimes he gets mixed up about when he is supposed to use one of those. I can’t say that humor was a requirement, but since you’ve asked, I think it might have been because my first try at wedded bliss had no funny bones.

Bill can make a trip to the grocery funny. I’ll sometimes catch him dancing down an aisle while he’s looking for something. Just because. He’s 6’3”. It’s obvious.

Bill went to college with David Letterman, who was in his fraternity. He was in a band with David called the Rutabaga Manhole Covers. Maybe Bill got his funny bones from David…but I actually think he was born with them.

If you have a funny partner is there ever a joke competition or do you play well off each other?

Never a competition, just a “you said that now I’ll say this’ kind of thing.” For example, he brought out the clean clothes from the laundry room. It was 22 degrees out this morning and I was cold. But that laundry was going to be hot from the dryer (I thought). I jumped up and said, “Let me hug that stuff.” He plopped the shirts on the table and said with a big smile, “Good luck with the Big Chill. These shirts are from the hanging rack, not the dryer.”

Did being funny ever get in the way of school or work? How?

No. Being not funny might have. I was known as the Velvet Sledgehammer at work. Is that funny? My coworkers thought so.

I loved to have fun at work. At one time, Bill and I had founded an education company in Florida. We had about 30 staff. I created a mascot, Eddie, who led the morning huddle that we had each day. When Bill and I were out of town we’d take Eddie with us and he’d participate in the huddle remotely. The team loved it. I’ve attached a picture of Eddie on the balcony overlooking the beach in California. He was a swell little pal.

My friend “Eddie” at the beach in California.

Can you describe the type of humor you possess? Clever Wit, quick-with-a-joke, physical, goofball, aggressive, self-enhancing, self-deprecating, dark, observational, all the aforementioned or one I didn’t think of?  What’s an example of how you might respond in any situation?

Wow. That’s a lot of kinds of humor! My funnies are coupled with being kind. I like to play with words. I like to see people laugh at things that aren’t exactly jokes, but more silliness in wordplay.

I lean toward clever wit. For example, in my story about Chopine (in After 21 Club) I used humor to describe the ladies clippity clopping, then said “Neigh I wouldn’t wear them, I’d have to rein them in and I was done horsing around.” You can see some of my humor in stories on Kindness Magnet, such as Gardening in the Nude, and That Stinks.

If you have kids, when was the first time you made them laugh?

I have 3 grown kids and 8 grandkids. Lots of opportunities to be a silly mom and RaRa, my grandma nickname.

We’ve had some funny times, as most parents do, for example when my first born clung to my leg and got dragged along. Or when I bought my daughter a horse at the grocery store (it’s amazing what you can buy there). Or the time a big pile of my kids’ legos started moving and it turned out to be a wriggling snake. Life can be funny without trying too hard!

Right after my granddaughter and I painted her room pink. We agreed that we might have been a little too neon.

Did your kids inherit your comedy skill?

That would be like inheriting vaporware! I do have a son-in-law who is a comedian when he isn’t working at Amazon.

Did your sense of humor change in the last 5 years? If so, how?

I’ve gotten more relaxed about saying funny things. Stuff comes out easier. I don’t worry about what other people think. I’ve discovered that I like being funny. I like making people laugh.

What would be the title of your life right now?

Kinda Fun. My husband laughs at me often because I subconsciously walk around shrugging my shoulders and saying, “That’s fun.” Now he has started to do it, of course to be silly and make fun of me. He has made me more aware of it, but apparently I say/do that a lot. I’m ok with that. It’s fun. Plus I figure the shoulder shrugging is good exercise for both of us.

Who is your role model? If you could say anything to this person, what would it be?

My Dad. He showed me the beauty of being both positive and kind. He started a company with just a handshake. He helped his employees when they needed it. He was there for me when I left my first husband.

What I would say to him is exactly what I said to him right before he died. “I love you.”

Who are you?

I am Heather, an introvert who weeds in her garden in Prescott, AZ or looks for sand dollars on the beach in Oceanside, CA. I’ve learned to become an ambivert in order to survive.

When I’m not gardening or beach-combing, you’ll find me enthusiastically diving down a velveteen rabbit hole of verbal and nonverbal blunders, following the trail to the intersection of kindness and communication. I write Kindness Magnet.

I live with my husband, Bill, my proof reader and best friend. He keeps me from making terrible mistakes in my writing, while also providing comic relief 😁 in our day to day.

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4. This is my first interview in my Funny AF Women feature. If you have question suggestions I’m all ears.