So, apparently there was a situation with a mule, a plow and my Uncle Bo when he was a kid. This situation that transpired was my uncle being unable to plow in a straight line. This was then followed by further complications that resulted in my paternal grandfather shouting, “that mule is worth more than you are!” at my uncle. The body of the story is confusing, and I don’t remember many of the details. I do however remember not finding it funny.
An Issue I Have with the Mule and The Plow
Dad told me the story but got mad halfway through because I was apparently giving him a Look.
Dad often thought I was giving him a Look. He was often wrong, but in this case, I was probably giving him a Look. The reason for the look is…I was told this story in the late seventies, early eighties.
I had no context when this story could have taken place, and as far as I knew, farms didn’t use mules to plow fields anymore. I did not understand how far back the story was, because Dad hadn’t provided much in the way of context concerning the story. (Though that might not have helped: Time is fake, and I have no actual idea when most historical things happened.) However, a mule and a plow seemed anachronistic to me, and Dad got my Skeptical Face at full force.
All that was needed was some historical context; such as what year it was, and why there was a mule and a plow instead of a tractor. It would not have made the punchline any more funny, but context is always helpful in a story. For example I have since been informed by a cousin that the story takes place in roughly in the mid 1940s, and the family was not able to afford a tractor.
An Issue I have with the Mule and the Plow
It isn’t funny. It really wasn’t funny. You could blame it on Dad for being a bad storyteller: he was not gifted in this area. Dad had a tendency to become angry if you didn’t react to a joke or a story the way he wanted you to. Much of the time it was nearly impossible to tell if Dad was joking or being serious. I kept missing cues, and never knew if I was supposed to laugh or take something seriously.
There’s nothing in the delivery that could save it, and the punchline seems to rely on the relative monetary values of a kid who can’t plow a straight line and a mule. Which is more disturbing than funny. Dad getting butt hurt because there is no way I could find his story about his brother, his dad, a mule and a plow funny. Because it’s not funny. It is pretty much the epitome of A Story I Would Never Find Funny.
As a secondary example of a story I won’t find particularly amusing: I was complaining a bit about a fantasy series where the writer was apparently not aware that both wild and domestic pigs are dangerous animals that are not particularly docile. (Much like any animal. However, a cow or horse will just kick or trample you. A pig may consider you to be on the menu because they are omnivores…and may get proactive about it.) So I was complaining about this on Tumblr, as you do, when someone said something like:
Them: Ha ha, my grandfather used to say he liked his pigs more than he liked his wife!
Me:…I’m sorry your grandmother was in an abusive relationship?
(Why would you think that was funny? Am I just too autistic to get the joke? Would I think the story was funny if I were not autistic? Why do people make jokes like this? If marriage is such a pain, don’t be married?)
To circle back to the mule story, why would you tell a story that would put your parent in a bad light? And apparently not realize that this is what you were doing? (How can you not tell?) My cousin feels the issue is that “it was a different time,” but he also says that our paternal grandfather was “a hard man.” (Which at least somewhat implies to me that this was not the status quo in all families during the 1940s. That is, there were fathers and grandfathers who might be less hard and a little more patient with their son who was having problems with directing a mule in the right direction.)
Anyway, this is more a story about my reaction to the Mule Story than about the Mule Story itself. Where my cousin refers to our paternal grandfather as “hard” I’m more inclined to go with “possibly toxic,” and also “kind of a jerk.” I never heard any other stories about my paternal grandfather, and never got the complete version of the story about the Mule. (Due to my dad getting mad that I didn’t think the Mule story wasn’t funny.) Note: I would still be interested in hearing more stories about my paternal grandfather, but not if my dad is the storyteller, that’s for sure.
Thanks to my cousin who gave me much needed context!
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