{Disclaimer: The names of the characters in this story were chosen arbitrarily. The names were chosen for readability, because the author believes the stories would be far less interesting if clouded in the, she, it’s. Any similarities to anyone with the names listed here are purely coincidental. This story is a work of creative nonfiction.}

“Tragedy is when I stub my toe. Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die.” –Mel Brooks

I’ve never fallen down a manhole, but I have to imagine that it hurts. “Um, yeah,” Mel might say, “That’s what makes it funny.” So, to be truly funny, someone has to get hurt. “Well, you put it like that, it sounds sadistic. It’s not sadistic, it’s human nature. It’s the fuzzy line between comedy and tragedy that dates back to Aristotle and Ancient Greece.”

It might be a little humorous to see some faceless entity falling into a manhole on one of those video montages, but what if we know the guy? Does that make it funnier or more tragic, or is there a middle ground that reveals this unusual relationship between comedy and tragedy? If we find a tragic incident like that funny, what is funny, what’s tragedy, and what’s the difference?

Laughing at other people’s pain is just kind of what we do. We hate to admit it, but in many cases it’s so funny that when someone calls us a heartless SOB, we can only laugh while acknowledging it. Is it our dark side coming out, or is it just human nature?

I’ve met the opposite, the few, the proud who not only avoid laughing, they don’t even smile when someone else gets hurt. They genuinely, with no virtue-signaling, don’t find the humor in other people’s pain. One of them was a first responder who she witnessed so much pain and sorrow that she no longer considered even trips and falls humorous. What’s the difference between a first responder and the rest of us, they run into a burning building when we run away. There are very very few who would stand outside a burning building and laugh, but  seeing another’s worst moment can be so shocking that we don’t know whether to laugh or cry, and laughter is our go-to. If we worked with tragedy as often as first responders, would it lead to a certain diminishment of this shock factor, or are those who deal with tragedy on a daily basis attracted to their professions because they are inherently more compassionate?

I’ve never witnessed such an incident, or known someone afflicted by one, but I can guess that most people don’t fall down manholes clean, like Yosemite Sam, and most of them aren’t mumbling comedic swear words to themselves on the way down. Most of them fear that they are going to damage something severely at the bottom, and that fear will probably produce echoed blood-curdling screams. They might not have enough time to fear death, but anyone who has fallen from a decent height knows that it’s pretty scary and they aren’t able to laugh about it for quite some time. The question is will we be laughing? If we weren’t there, and our only attachment to their incident is their harrowing retelling of the moment, will we be laughing? 

If our friend walks away from the fall with some superficial bumps and bruises, that might be funny, but what if he chipped a tooth? What if he took a nasty knock on the head, or broke an ankle? What if his injuries were so severe that he required first responders to free him? Does the severity of the moment, and the eventual injuries, align with the comedy, the tragedy, or does it brush up against our definition of the fuzzy line that we try to erect between the two to try to keep them separated?

Before you answer, think about how you might retell the story. When we tell a story, we might not always be looking for a laugh, but we want a reaction. To get the best reactions, comedians advise that we always be closing. A great closing involves a great punchline of course. If punchline is the wrong word, how about punctuation, and what better punctuation would there be than adding that the subject of our story was forced to endure a prolonged hospital stay that involved tubes and machines keeping the victim alive? “They’re saying that the nasty knock on the head could leave him mentally impaired for the rest of his life?” That might be extreme, as few would find mental impairment funny, but where is the line or the lines of demarcation that define comedy and tragedy in this matter?

The initial sight of Jed lying at the bottom of the sewer might be funny, unless he’s screaming. What if he’s hurt? How can he not be? We laugh. We don’t mean to laugh. We don’t find this funny, but we can’t stop. Some of us might wait to find out if Jed’s okay before we laugh, and some of us might wait until he’s not around, so when we can retell the story of his fall and laugh with others. Most of us will laugh at some point though. It’s our reaction to something tragic.

Laughing, or otherwise enjoying, another person’s pain is so common, that the Germans, developed a term for it: schadenfreude. Is our laughter fueled by the relief that it’s not happening to us, is it human nature, or is it the result of comedies and comedians molding our definition of what’s humorous by twisting dark, tragic themes into something funny? The advent of slapstick comedy occurred long before we were alive, but I don’t think anyone would argue that comedy has grown darker and more violent over the decades. We now consider some truly brutal acts hilarious. Have comedy writers changed our definition of humor, or are they reflecting the changes in society? Would an Abbot and Costello fan consider it hilarious if someone fell in a manhole, what would a Mel Brooks fan think, or a Will Farell fan? Are such incidents funny in a timeless manner, or have comedians upped the ante so much, and so often, that our definition has darkened with it? Whatever the case is, incidents such as these reveal the relative nature of humor, the fuzzy line between tragedy and comedy, and how we find comedy in others’ tragedies. The purposeful melding of the two even has its own genre now: tragicomedy.

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My personal experience with the fuzzy line between comedy and tragedy, didn’t involve falling into a manhole, but licking a pole. I was in the fifth or sixth grade, old enough and smart enough to know better, but young enough and dumb enough to do it anyway on one of the coldest days in February. I didn’t know the philosophical details of the symbiotic relationship between comedy and tragedy, but I knew everyone would laugh uproariously if they saw me stuck there. I knew an overwhelming number of my classmates would not share a “Well, at least you’re okay” sentiment when it was over. I knew this wasn’t one of those types of mistakes. I didn’t know a whole lot about human nature, but I knew how much we all crave stories of pain and humiliation, because I did. I was one of those types, and I knew I never forgot. I knew the minute I got too full of myself, thinking I was so smart, so funny, or whatever, someone would drop a “Weren’t you stuck on a pole a couple months ago?” Some people might call it heartless, others might suggest that anyone who would even smile at such a thing is lacking some necessary levels of compassion, but I think it’s just kind of who were are and what we do to one another, and we don’t always do it with malice either. Some of the times, we do it just because that’s what we do. 

I didn’t stand there and think about all this while stuck in the moment of course. The only things I thought about were how am I going to rip myself free and how much is this going to hurt? When I thought about the pain, though, I knew it would be worth it to prevent anyone from finding out about this. The idea that one person might see me stuck on this pole compelled me to pull my tongue off as quickly as possible. I don’t remember exactly how long my tongue hurt after I ripped several layers of my tongue off, but I had enough time to think I should’ve considered an alternative. I still don’t regret it. I still consider the physical pain secondary to the mental and emotional pain I would’ve endured if I hadn’t ripped my tongue off the pole.

I’ve read stories since of others who’ve experienced similar embarrassments, calling in first responders to set them free. The first question I have for these people I’ll never meet is, what were you thinking?

These unfortunate victims had to know that the chance of someone seeing them in that embarrassing position increased exponentially with each second they remained stuck to the pole. They had to know that calling someone over would lead them to call someone else over, until they all gave up and called in a rescue squad. The very idea that that many people might know about it, still makes me so uncomfortable that the only thing I can do is cringe. 

I have to imagine that these victims were either younger than I was at the time, or that the severity of their incident was much worse than mine. For if all of the circumstances were even somewhat similar, then I have to ask them why they didn’t just rip themselves free? My empathy goes out to them if they feared how painful that would be, but they had to consider all the ridicule, teasing, and bullying they would endure in the aftermath. Even if they feared the pain so much that they wanted an adult to come along and find a less painful solution for them, I would ask them if it was worth it. Even if that adult was smart enough, or calm enough, to just walk inside and retrieve a cup of water to try to prevent the child from experiencing greater pain, I would wager that someone else found out about it. That someone told someone else, and the end result was that physical pain I endured paled in comparison to the emotional abuse these kids endured from his peers.

Does getting a tongue stuck on a pole compare to falling down a manhole? It does not, when comparing the possible injuries, or other painful consequences, but I would submit that it does when it comes to the probability of embarrassment. I write that because the embarrassment of getting your tongue stuck to a pole has a storied tradition of humor, a tradition enhanced by the movie A Christmas Story. The humor is an agreed upon universal, further enhanced by the relatively minor, but painful lessons attached to it.  

I also knew the class bully would be waiting with baited breath for any and all details of my tragedy, and I knew his audience wouldn’t be able to restrain themselves from laughing at his displays of cruel and clever creativity. I didn’t know what nicknames or limericks he would develop, but I knew he would develop something. He was our class clown, and he was always developing material on someone. All of the pain I experienced in the aftermath of that toe curling rip of my tongue was worth it, because at least he wouldn’t have this material on me.

We’ve all heard talk show guests say that they were the class clown in school. We all smile knowingly, picturing them as children dancing with a lampshade on their head and coming up with the perfect sarcastic response to the teacher that even the teacher considered hilarious. When we hear this, we nod. Of course he was the class clown. You don’t get that funny overnight. There has to an internal need to hear laughter, by whatever means necessary, at a very young age. Those of us who knew a class clown saw some of that, but we also saw what happened when they ran out of good-natured and fun material. I knew the minute our class clown ran out of material he would begin looking around for victims, and I was always one of his favorite targets. Anyone who has spent time around a class clown, or a group of class clowns, knows that their stock and trade involves insults. I didn’t spend ten seconds stuck on that pole, but picturing his mean-spirited smile, after he delivered a dagger that had its tip dipped in this material was the image that consumed me and convinced me that I made the right decision later.    

We all enjoy making people laugh, but some have a deep psychological need to make people laugh, and they don’t care who has to get hurt in the process. Based on my experiences with class clowns, I can only guess that those who would fashion a career out of it, such that they were so successful that they ended up in a late night talk show chair talking about it, probably learned early on that no matter how you slice it, if someone falls down a manhole, or gets their tongue stuck to a pole, there’s comedy gold in there waiting to be excavated. They may be too young to know anything about the complexities inherent in the symbiotic relationship between comedy and tragedy at the time, but at some point they realized that anyone can get a laugh. To separate themselves from the pack of former class clowns-turned-successful standup comedians, the successful learned that they would have to spend decades learning the intricacies and complexities of their craft, as everyone from the Ancient Greeks to Mel Brooks did. They would also learn that for all of the complexities involved in comedy, one simple truth they learned in fifth to sixth grade remains, if one wants to achieve side-splitting laughter from the widest audience possible, someone has to get hurt.