As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Kentucky back country.
As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions.
I finally arrived over an hour late and saw that the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.
There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late.
I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place and earth covered most of it. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.
The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this poor, homeless man. And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together.
When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.
As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I ain't never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."
As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions.
I finally arrived over an hour late and saw that the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.
There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch. I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late.
I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place and earth covered most of it. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.
The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this poor, homeless man. And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together.
When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.
As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I ain't never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."
I loved this story! It is a prime example of the Reversal Theory. The story successfully put me in a telic state, feeling bad for this homeless dead man with no friends, and then promptly took me to a paratelic state with the punch line. Had it not been successful in putting me in a serious, telic state originally, I dont think it would have had the same effect.
As usual, the base of humor is incongruity, and the inconguous ideas here are first the two states and second the idea that this person played so well, and put his heart and soul into playing in honor of a dead homeless with no one else, when really he must have been in the totally wrong spot and was playing for these men putting in septic tanks. The semantic distance between funerals and septic tanks is large enough that this ending made it very humerous!
This is funny because of the social incongruity but not really laugh out loud funny because there wasn't a good element of surprise. Cognitively, I already knew that something was going to happen to take away from the seriousness of the story. I agree that this story is a very good example of reversal theory. The attempt was made to add cognitive surprise by creating this telic mood and then switching to paratelic but it just didn't really work because I knew it was supposed to be a joke.
Also, this joke can be explained using incongruity-resolution. If you find this funny even though you know it's a joke from the beginning, the incongruity comes from the seriousness of something that is supposed to be funny and the resolution from the punchline.
I think another aspect of what makes this joke funny is that it seems to be cued to arouse emotions. We hear the story of the homeless man and the bagpiper and we have an emotional reaction. It focuses on themes that can tap into emotions very easily like death and respect, and once we are emotionally aroused, bam punchline. We already are in this aroused emotional state and we need some resolution, some way to express the emotion and relieve the tension and so hear the punchline and we laugh. We probably don't even have to find it funny, we just need to end this tension caused by such an emotional response.