Some are warped, bizarre and just plain wacky

Andi Cook

Cook's Brew

My father had a warped sense of humor. I distinctly remember the day he snuck up on my p.j. clad mother and stuck an icicle down her night shirt. I was only about six years old, but Mama's reaction to Daddy's twisted sense of humor left a definite impression on my young mind. I think it left one on Daddy's mind, too, because I don't have later recollections of him playing that kind of joke on Mama again.

He did take unsuspecting campers snipe hunting at one church camp. He left them and the gullible summer missionaries out beating the bushes trying to scare out fictional snipe, while he went back to the camp to lounge on the porch and await their dispirited return. Mama decided he needed a dose of his own medicine and brought him a crisp bed of lettuce topped with cottage cheese, one of his favorites. She got the last laugh as Daddy sprayed the disgusting cottage cheese substitute, wet powdered milk, all over the porch.

I remember his oft repeated jokes and his punsational nature. All of us kids would just shake our heads and sigh when we would drive past the exit sign for Oswego and Daddy would burst into spontaneous song, "Oswego into the wild blue yonder."

Even though we would groan loudly and shake our heads at Daddy's antics, I married a man with a similar, or maybe slightly more bizarre, sense of humor. Wayne too is a punster. The boys and I often roll our eyes and engage in protracted sighs over some of his jokes. We sometimes even let a smile escape and, on occasion, laugh with him. Since Wayne always laughs uproariously at his own jokes, it is hard not to join in the mirth. Even when the joke is weak, his laughter is catching.

I say Wayne's sense of humor is somewhat bizarre because he subjected his parishioners, and not just his family, to his pranks. When he was a young pastor he visited one of the deacons, an upstanding revered member of the community, in the hospital following a hemorrhoid operation.

When the man returned to the church the following Sunday, Wayne told him, "You know, I did not mind you showing me your scar. I just wish you had waited until Andi left the room."

The poor man turned every shade of red imaginable before he realized that Wayne was pulling his leg.

Only Wayne would precede his final sermon in a church with a farewell to his jokester music leader that included sticking out his tongue and sounding a raspberry in the pulpit. One of his most memorable sermons starts off with a cell phone call from God. Until Wayne identified the caller, the whole congregation was convinced that he had left his phone on and answered it just as he got up to preach.

I thought I was well acquainted with off the wall humor until I met Maxine. The things she did put Wayne and Daddy in the shade.

Once she was scheduled for a hemorrhoid operation. She got to thinking about how awful it would be to be a doctor, who had to carve on people in unmentionable places day after day. She determined to bring a ray of sunshine into the operating room on the day of her surgery.

She was scheduled to arrive at the hospital bright and early in the morning to be prepped and gowned. She knew that when the surgical team arrived, she would be clad in a gown that opened down the back. She would be lying on her stomach, bare bottomed and draped for surgery.

The evening before the big event, she convinced her husband to help her prepare a laughter-inducing surprise for her surgeon. He painted a large smiley face on her backside so that when the drapes were removed, the surgical team would get a laugh.

She knew that men were allowed to accompany their wives into the operating room during a birth, and tried to convince the doctor that her husband should be present for this particular operation. It was not that she needed his moral support. She wanted him to smuggle in a tape recorder and camera so he could capture their reaction for her to view later. After all, the point of playing a practical joke is getting to enjoy the effect.

Of all the people with a strange sense of humor that I've known, Maxine definitely wins the prize. Daddy may have had a warped sense of humor and Wayne's may be bizarre, but Maxine's is just plain wacky.

Andi Cook is a life-long educator, mother of three and the wife of local minister, Wayne Cook. Her columns are featured each Wednesday in The Daily News.