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Exercise #280: Craft
Posted 9/5/08
I saw a joke this week, and thinking about it for a couple of days gave me today’s Craft exercise. First, here’s the joke:
Three men are in heaven, discussing how they died. The first man said, “I died of heart failure. I finally got that hole-in-one on the golf course and the excitement was too much. Poof! And here I was in heaven.”
The other two men murmured condolences on the first man’s death and congratulations for his hole-in-one. Then the second man said, “I died of kidney failure. The dialysis wasn’t working well enough anymore and I died in the hospital, surrounded by my family.”
The other two men noted how it was good his family was with him. Then the third man said, “I died of seenus.”
The first man said, “Don’t you mean sinus?”
“No, seenus. I was out with another woman and my wife seen us.”
Buh-duh-bump.
Now, it’s an old joke. It’s been around in various forms for a long time, but this time, in this version, it didn’t work for me and it even bothered me for awhile. Why? Because it has one huge, glaring error, right up front.
That inaccuracy ruined the entire joke for me, and I got to thinking about how we as readers (or viewers, for movies and television) will sometimes accept inaccuracies and sometimes not. I am much more lenient with an author I “know” and like than I am if I’m reading some unknown’s first novel.
So how much will you put up with? Give us an example, if you will, of a time when a book or show totally lost you and why. Or, an example of sometime when you let the error float past, unremarked.
Critiquers, if you have read the book or seen the show in question, how did you feel about the inaccuracy mentioned?
Word limit: 750
Please use the subject line
SUB: Exercise #280/yourname
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the error in the joke, don’t feel bad. Not everyone sees it. The three men are in heaven, discussing how they died. Yet man #3 died while committing adultery. Why is he in heaven? Now, if the men had been in line, waiting to see St. Peter at the Gate, no issue. :-)
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