I don’t what it is, but sometimes a thing will just grab me as hysterically funny. I will laugh way out of proportion to the funniness of it. Part of it is the way that humor can build. When you’re laughing, every subsequent joke seems even funnier. But sometimes a joke just strikes my brain funny and I think I might die.

I just encountered a prime example. Via Cracked’s humorous article on infomercials, I found these two lines about the Pasta Pro (that stupid pot with holes in it). From Cracked:

For our money, the cameo by cocksucker husband, who irritably taps his watch when his wife drops the pasta, is the clear winner. The expected “Where’s my dinner bitch?” comment is never uttered, but it is practically swirling around on screen in capitalized letters like tiny angry-man sugar plums.

Also, on top of saving your marriage, the amazingly versatile Pasta Pro fits both gas and electric stoves.

You try to pull that shit with a regular pot, the bastard’s likely to burst into flame. You won’t have time to worry about that, though, as the fierce blows rain down from your husband’s belt.

So that set me up. Then this knocked me down from the infomercial product review message board:

Shitty Pot, Great Entertainment Value

7/17/2008 – Jenn of Alberta, Canada writes:
My boyfriend got this pot as a gift. He used it once and when he went to drain the pasta, the lid stuck to the pot and wouldn’t come off. He was very hungry. Instead of throwing out the pot, he decided that he was going to have some [] pasta whether or not the pot was going to cooperate. He eventually took it outside with a baseball bat and smashed it in. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take too long considering how [] the pot was to begin with. Two stars! One for the crappy pot and one for the strange looks he got from the neighbours that day.

I literally could not finish that comment the first time because I was laughing so hard. It made me have to go the bathroom. It’s not that funny, really. You probably don’t find it funny at all. But for some reason, it struck me at the right moment and put me in near hysterics.

This has become less common as I get older. When I was a kid and camping out, we could recite dumb jokes that, when combined with copious farting, would nearly result in suffocation. Such events are rare and memorable now. They were common then. It’s nice to watch my daughter get to the stage where I can make her laugh uncontrollably just by making her rubber ducks dance together.

Update: Also, is it just me? Or do the models in these infomercials seem to spend an inordinate amount of time holding the product in front of their chest? If I had to think of a theme for infomercials, it would be, “She’s not wearing a bra.”