Will ‘They’ Appreciate My Joke?

I belong to a Toastmasters group, where I work on my public speaking skills and cheer on my friends—and new acquaintances—as they work on theirs. Yesterday I was delivering a speech on a memory trick I’d learned about, and I had planned my presentation with a little humor in the beginning: I would admit that part of my memory problems might come from the fact that I smoked a lot of pot in college.

But as I was helping to set up for the meeting, two guests arrived who my mind labeled as “older,” and I thought maybe I shouldn’t use that joke—like “these older ladies” might not appreciate it.

Well, I generally can’t resist a joke, so I decided to use it anyway. And as predicted, it got a good laugh—and some hearty recognition around the room.

Fast forward to the impromptu speaking portion of the meeting, where people are invited to “take the mic” for two minutes and respond to a question they’re posed, as an opportunity to practice speaking off the cuff.

Both of our guests were game to join in, and as the first one got started, she told us that she’s 81, and then she turned to me and said, “And I smoked a lot of pot in college, too.”

Voilà! Hearty laughs and recognition all around.

Now, I don’t know what I’d been thinking with, “These older ladies might not appreciate my pot joke.” I was born in 1960, and if I’d done the math, I would have realized that anyone born 20 or so years earlier than me was actually a young adult in the sixties—and a lot of them were smoking pot while I was still in diapers. And just because someone doesn’t wear flowing skirts and wavy hair down to their waist doesn’t mean they’re all prim and proper and disapproving-of-my-misspent-youth inside.

The truth is, anyone might or might not appreciate my pot joke, and age has nothing to do with it.

Lesson learned? We’ll see. The mind is a funny place, and the ageist conditioning of 63 years doesn’t undo itself overnight. But recognition is a good start.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels