Hump Day Happiness: A Few Things That Made Me Laugh

I get amused easily. Here are a few things that have amused me in recent weeks. Call it a Mid-Week Happy Hump Day Laugh! Some are quotes, some are memes, and some were meant to be serious words of wisdom that still ended up striking my funny bone. Whatever the case, I thought I would share them. Hopefully, they hit you the same way:

—The Ultimate Time Jump: If someone fell asleep in 1980 and woke up in 2026, what do you think would shock them the most? Pocket-sized supercomputers? Tapping a watch to pay for coffee? Electric cars that park themselves? No more landlines? AI? Oh, the choices! Personally? Wake me up in 46 years.”

—The Existential Motorcyclist: I saw a social media video of a lone motorcyclist looking out over a beautiful sunset. These words were posted in the corner of the screen: “Your death will come on an ordinary day, in the middle of unfinished plans, and the world will continue without you. So live a little.” Oh, it’s a bit of gallows humor, but the irony of the truth made me laugh. Yes, live a little.

—The Fear of the Blank Page: When you want world domination, but you’re too scared to leave your house: “Wanting to be a writer and not wanting to be rejected is like being a boxer and not wanting to get punched.” — David Barr Kirtley. You can’t have one without the other.

—Laugh, chuckle, guffaw . . . it’s all the same thing: The funny bone is an archaic word. You don’t hear it used much anymore, but after learning where it got its origin, I’m going to be using it all the time now. No it’s not an actual bone. Our sense of humor gets its famous nickname as a wordplay on the humerus (the upper arm bone), which sounds just like “humorous.” Thank you Google.

—The Age Continuum: “How weird is it to be nearly 60 and feel like you’re 25? And then you talk to someone who’s actually 25 and suddenly you feel 70.” Where’d these adult responsibilities come from? I have a math test tomorrow and my driver’s test the following day. Oh wait, I’m not sixteen anymore.

—Schooling Time: “Forgive yourself for not knowing earlier what only time could teach you.” Old Man Time needs to go back and get its teaching degree. Did I really need to learn all these hard knocks? Couldn’t it have just done a better job teaching the lesson upfront? C’mon, Time!

—The Lasso/Twain Philosophy: Mark Twain was onto something. So too is Ted Lasso: “You’re never wrong to do the right thing.” It’s serious as heck, but it’s still funny as heck. Do the right thing.

—The Ultimate Travel Advice: “If you want to see how terrible the world is, watch the news. If you want to see how wonderful the world is, walk the Camino de Santiago.” Who’s with me? Camino, here I come. The Camino de Santiago is the centuries-old network of pilgrim trails across Europe that leads to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, where the remains of St. James the Apostle are believed to be buried. I have a goal to walk it one day.

—Honest Copywriting: I found this meme about writing: “I am a writer. I tell lies to total strangers for money.” And yes, I’ll tell you a few lies too if you’ll indulge me.

—Going Ghost: “I don’t get mad. I get distant.” This is an old saying, but the rawness and truthfulness of the statement make me laugh every time I see it.

—No Excuses: Walk, run, fly. American ultramarathon runner Dean Karnazes knows a thing or two about giving your best effort: “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” Something tells me he would frown on my excuse that my dog ate my homework. Let’s not tell him too that it was raining this morning so I skipped my workout. Yikes.

Meanwhile, Looking Up…

There’s also something brewing in the nighttime sky this month. If the internet isn’t making you smile, looking up definitely will:

• June 8–10: So Close, Yet So Far Away. Venus and Jupiter make a close, beautiful pairing in the western sky. They will look like they’re practically touching.
• June 15: Super New Moon & Mercury. The Moon reaches its closest approach to Earth during its new moon phase, offering pristine, dark skies for stargazing. On the same evening, Mercury reaches its greatest eastern elongation, making it highly visible to the naked eye just above the western horizon.
• June 17: Passing in Front of Venus. A crescent Moon will pass directly in front of Venus. This daytime occultation will be visible across the contiguous U.S., Canada, and northern Mexico.

Milky Way

• June 15–25: A River Runs Through It. The sky will be at its darkest with the new moon. In the quiet hours after midnight, the Milky Way will appear as a thick, glowing river of millions of stars.
• June 20: Summer, Summer, Summertime. The Northern Hemisphere will mark the Summer Solstice—the longest day of the year.
• June 26–27: Wish Upon a Shooting Star. The June Bootid meteor shower peaks. While usually quiet, it occasionally puts on surprise displays of over 100 shooting stars per hour.

I’m no astronomer, but I’m smart enough to know that there’s always something good to see in the sky. To wrap things up, I saw this written on a post recently. I’m not sure about you, but I can definitely picture myself saying this line:

“‘You have a master’s degree,’ I whisper to myself as I try to figure out how to run colored paper through the copy machine. ‘Yes, I have a master’s degree. I can do this.’”

Um, yeah. I can do this.

Hopefully, these made you smile and laugh. You gotta laugh a little, right? What made you laugh today?

GEICO Hump Day Camel Commercial Happier than a Camel on Wednesday