We Have Something in Common

Two young men in their late twenties, George and Frank have just been hired by a large company which sells seeds. They both are working in the warehouse engaged in labour that requires a lot of heavy lifting bags of seed on their part. The two of them were already fairly strong, one reason why they were hired.

At first they didn’t talk much to each other, they just quietly did their work, speaking only when they needed some help from the other.  That started to change when George made a sarcastic remark about the foreman Ralph, who had just instructed them with an obvious concern how they should load unload the bags when they were putting them in the store section of the complex. He said, “I know that the bags look a lot alike, but you should be careful to check what bags you are carrying, so that they match the others in the pile. Mistakes are easily made.”

 The two men felt insulted. There had not been any mix-ups in that area before, but they did not say a thing until foreman Ralph left. They were still new at the job and had heard that the foreman had fired their predecessors. They would have to keep quiet in his presence in order for their jobs to be safe.

When the foreman was sufficiently far away that he would not be able to hear them talk, George spoke up sarcastically, “Do you think that every time when his wife bakes him a pie, he instructs her that the crust has to be on the bottom and on the edges, and the filling must be on top of and between the crust, not the other way around?”

Frank burst out laughing, almost choking in his laughter. Sarcasm was the kind of humour that he had long liked the best. He had grown up with it. When he finished laughing, he replied with sarcasm of his own. “Can you imagine before each and every time that he and his wife have sex, he tells her where different parts of their bodies must be placed, and who should be on top?”

George began to laugh uproariously, just as his work partner had done just a very short minutes earlier. He too replied with more sarcasm about how the foreman would tell his wife how to identify their children when school was finished, and she had to pick them up. He would instruct his wife that she should either write down what clothes they were wearing on that day, or take a picture of them when she dropped them off at school in the morning.

This was the beginning of their relationship as not just workmates but friends, a connection very much based on their shared love of sarcasm. No one in the company was safe from their comments to each other. Rumours were spread to a certain extent, but no one knew exactly what they were saying. They just heard their synchronized outbursts of laughter, but did not want to approach them as the sarcasm could be directed their way.

Then One Day in the Local Bar

Then one day in the local bar, they started talking about how they both shared a passion for sarcasm, and wondered why that was. George had an idea, expressed in a question, “Have we met before? Ralph’s first response was that maybe they had. It would explain a lot of they how they got along. They then went through their personal histories, to see whether it was possible that they had met before. They were not able to identify such an occasion. They had gone to different schools in town, played different sports when they were younger. George played hockey as a goalie, but did not play anything else outside of hockey season. Ralph was an outfielder in the one sport he played. He could not skate very well, so he had avoided playing hockey completely.

At this point, they wanted to proceed further, discovering more about each other’s life. Perhaps that might be why they shared sarcasm so readily. So George began telling his life story 

“Well, I had a rather rough start in life. When I was five years old, my father and mother split up.  My dad left us to be involved with another woman, and I never saw or heard from him again. He was a big influence on my early life. We used to talk a lot together, and he would tell jokes, often sarcastic ones. Then he was gone.”

           “Then my mother remarried, and my second father was more closely attached to my half-brother and half sister than he ever was with me. He rarely ever spoke to me, except when he demanded that I change my last name to his, as he had done with my mother. It wasn’t long before I forgot the last name that I once had attached to my name.

My second father really did not like my sarcastic jokes. He really would have hated my ‘real father’. I left home when I was still a teenager and got my first job soon afterwards. My life was good, as people at work often laughed at my jokes. I was more than once the life of the party. Owing to my aggressive sense of humour, I did not have a girlfriend until a couple of years ago, when I met my wife, who is sarcastic herself. That’s pretty much how my life has been. How about you?”

           Ralph then began to tell his story. “Well my dad had a big influence on me too. He was the one to teach me sarcasm like your dad did with you. My poor sister became my first major victim in that department. My father did not punish me for doing that. He would just shake his head first, and then smile when my sister left the room. He was rarely serious, especially when he was talking about a woman he once knew. He had a lot of complaints about her, that she was ‘too straight’ and had absolutely no sense of humour. He more than a few times would tell me never to marry someone like that. Like with your situation, my wife has a good sense of humour. Sometimes she directs some sarcasm my way. We then have a kind of contest, with back and forth insults that we both enjoy.”

The two men were silent for an unusually long time. They were both thinking about what the other had said, and what that might mean. Then George asked the big question, “What is your father’s first name?”

The answer came quickly. “His name is Fred.” George then let out a burst of laughter, and quickly commented. “That was my dad’s first name too. Do you think that we have the same father?”

Physical features of their father were soon shouted out by both men.  Both said the same things. He was tall, had red hair, a large nose (the subject of some of his jokes), and long arms.  They learned, then, that they were undoubtedly half brothers, influenced in humour by their shared father. They thought it would be a good joke, to go together to see him after work.