If Friendship Was A Question

The Power of an Inside Joke

Date: 12/20/2010-before the trip to L'el's

The Power of an Inside Joke

                One of the best things about having friends is that ability to laugh at something that no one gets. For any of you parents who are rolling your eyes whenever you don't get what we're talking about, they are called inside jokes. An inside joke is a wonderful thing that makes no sense to anyone else because you had to be there to get it. I'm sure everyone has inside jokes, but I sometimes wonder if anyone realizes just how important they are to a healthy friendship. Or at least how important I think they are.

                So how do these things get started? As I've come to notice, they can come from just about anything. I've got jokes with the Girls that originates from just about anything, whether it's from your every day dinner conversation, or in response to a hazardous situation. An inside joke may even start off really small, but over the years develop into something that becomes a daily thing. Take my nicknames over the years for example given to me by Trouble. I believe I started out being called Bubbles, which I hated. But since Trouble gets quite the kick out of my sufferings, she continued to call me that. However, last year she gifted me with an even more unbearable one: Bambi. Yes, I am completely aware that Bambi is a boy, and has ears the size of a grapefruit. Yet somehow, that name has managed to haunt me to the point where I respond to it in the hallway. Yippee. The worst part is that the name has a reason behind it, and lately everyone else has been calling me that. That does include L'el, Chocolate, and FMW. Although FMW doesn't pick on me as much.

                The truth behind my name however is that it actually does not bother me. The fun part is mockingly acting like it does. Because it's a joke. One which is constantly reminding me of how weird my friends are, and just how much of a kick they get out of picking on me. This may sound like I've got a rather mean group of friends, but believe me when I say that it's all kicks and giggles, even on my part. I've got my own share of things to pick on Trouble for. The size of certain assets she has for example...(If she reads this, I'm so getting hit). Every day we make jokes about these kinds of things, and every time it's brought up I smile.  Although I will admit that our jokes are sometimes...weirder than others...they still always have the same basic point. An inside joke is a very unique, and yet very simple idea that originates from anything, and nothing.

                Something I was reminded of today is that an inside joke can do more than create a random laugh or fond memory. Trouble and I were in class, and we got yelled at by one of my favorite teachers. I'm not one who is used to be being yelled at by teachers, so I took it a little hard and kind of went into a mood even though I was in a good mood before then. Trouble, however, didn't seem to let it affect her, and proceeded to draw on my notebook.  Within moments we had a drawing of a terrible stick demon getting ready to kill a seal with a very...fluffy tail. This image by itself was a joke from Overlord 2, which if any of you haven't played, it's a game where you're the bad guy and you have to kill seals for the power to summon more minions. The first time Trouble saw me doing that, she was horrified. Thus, within a few more minutes the drawing had changed to a Seal of Doom, wielding an aura of death, preparing to kill the demon.  Go Trouble, save the baby seals. Haha. Anyway, this little drawing, that took us a total of two minutes made me laugh. With that laugh, a piece of my bad mood was removed. Was it gone, definitely not. But thanks to her I was able to laugh and forget the stupid comment I'd just received.  

                Now, Trouble's little drawing may have seemed like a very small inside joke, and in fact it was. The best ones are the ones that had all of the Girls rolling on the floor laughing for several minutes. Ok, L'el is the only one who can laugh for several minutes straight, but I'm being completely honest that her...extensive laughter is awesome and identifies the good jokes. It's only when she laughs that hard that jokes become memorable.  Anyway,  that little joke was funny enough to remove the bad parts of my day. That is the power of an inside joke. The drawing on the notebook wasn't even anything new, since we do weird little things like that all the time, but the fact that she did that meant something at that moment. She took something negative away. This is just a small example of what friends do for you, and what you can do for them. There have been other times when I'm talking about something so important to me I'm nearly in tears, and all a friend has to do is crack a Bambi joke, and immediately I'm laughing. The power of laughter is something that I would hope you all understand already, but if not I'll get into that one some other day.

                An inside joke is like laughter in a free bottle. It's always available, always ready, rarely hated, always uplifting, and never regretted. Isn't that basically what friendship is? Maybe. With my girls, I've realized that those inside jokes last longer than almost anything else in the world, and for Christmas this year I hope to get something that reminds them of an inside joke. Which one, I'm not sure of yet. There are many to choose from. But no matter what, those jokes remain, and even people I don't consider friends now, I still laugh when I think of our inside jokes. I don't remember all of them, but you'd be surprised just how easy it is to be reminded of a true inside joke.

                Another thing I've noticed is that some groups don't do inside jokes as much. I've cycled through quite a few friends over my lifetime, and I know for fact that my previous ones didn't do inside jokes. My elementary group was really big into them, but my 8th grade-mid sophomore year ones were not. I can't really think of a single inside joke. From my elementary school friends I can think of a few though. So one thing I always wonder about, is how do friendships like that stay together? Without those inside jokes, how do you laugh? This may not be true with everyone, but when I think back to those girls who I used to be friends with, I realized I didn't laugh. I mean sure, when there was a very obvious joke I laughed, so I wasn't like a zombie or anything, but nothing ever became an inside joke.

And you want to know the truth on what happened to those friends of mine? I got bored with them. They were so typical. All they cared about was boys and boy drama. They had fights every week because so and so was dating the douche bag again. That's all it really was. Everyday I'd come to school and listen to them complain about it all. It got old. There wasn't anything fun about them, just dramatic. Call me crazy, but I craved some fun. Ha, well let's just say the greater power out there pointed me in the right direction. I think half of my life is jokes and good times now, and it's amazing. When I think about it, I don't even really miss those boy-drama girls. I miss the fact that they were my friends, but if I could choose between them and the Girls I have now, I'd pick my Girls every time.

So my conclusion for today is that inside jokes are important to a healthy friendship. It's what keeps it fresh, and yet keeps it old. New jokes are always being made, and old ones always being brought up. It keeps us going, makes each day full of laughter and smiles. Sometimes I've realized that an inside joke can even come to mean as much as a hug can, maybe even more. Anyone can give a hug, which makes them special in their own way, sure. But an inside joke only certain people can say, and those people in my life are my friends.  The power of an inside joke is to remind a friend and yourself of a good time, and thus creating more good times. The only bad inside joke is one that was funny to one person alone.

  But really, what isn't funny about a Seal of Doom killing a lame stick demon? It's a seal! And I don't mean an adult seal, I mean this cute little fluff ball with a long feathery tail. Well, cute other than the "death" aura around it....