Reacting to British Humour

Before I moved to the UK, a photo beside a red telephone box was an excellent holiday achievement. I’d visited a couple of times, and that was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to put on social media. Living here changed my willingness to get anywhere near one.

A British meme brought that change back to me. I still love the design of the red boxes, but I find them disgusting. Watching jokes about everyday life also sent me off on a story about an open bedroom window and the biggest beetle I’d ever seen.

Watch my British humour reactions on YouTube.

I like the telephone box from a distance

There are things I didn’t notice on visits that became much more obvious once I lived here. Red telephone boxes are one of them. I like their appearance and think the newer alternatives have lost some of the character, but I no longer want to climb into one for a photo.

London is another place I’m happy to enjoy on a visit. I like living close enough to get in and back out again, but I don’t want to live there. It’s too much for me.

Even after visiting, I don’t know the stations well enough to remember which have the awful stairs. I’ve decided to take the stairs, thinking it would be no big deal, then realised I’d chosen a much deeper station than I expected. That is a very different experience from admiring London in a holiday photo.

The view was lovely until the beetle arrived

Window screens were something I’d taken for granted in North America. When I moved here and encountered windows without them, I initially loved the unobstructed view. I could open the window and look straight outside without a net in the way.

Then I remembered bugs.

Recently, I was reading in bed with the lights low and the window open when I heard a loud rustling noise. We have a plant in the bedroom with substantial leaves, and I thought one might have fallen off. When the noise continued, I got up and looked over the bed.

There was a big black mass. I screamed, we turned the lights up, and I saw the largest beetle I’d ever encountered outside a zoo. It was trying to fly around the bedroom, and its pincers were horrible to look at. Beautiful creature, wrong room.

While I screamed and took pictures, my partner found a big tub and a piece of cardboard, scooped it up and took it outside. I’d nearly ignored the first noise. I didn’t want to think about falling asleep with that thing still in the room.

The joke about opening a window in hot weather and inviting insects in had given me plenty to talk about. My initial enthusiasm for a screen-free view had acquired a qualification.

Some jokes were already my life

A meme about clothes that are worn but not dirty described my own arrangement perfectly. Properly dirty clothes go in my little basket. Clothes I’ve only worn briefly can’t go back in the dresser, but don’t need washing yet, so they go on top of the basket instead.

The self-checkout camera joke was familiar too. I love self-checkout and intend to keep using it, but looking at the camera is a good way to humble yourself.

Watching a bag mishap reminded me of a particularly embarrassing one of my own. I’d bought some fancy dip and was walking home when the bottom of the bag gave way. The dip went over the ground and my feet, then splashed up my trousers. I love trying food. That wasn’t how I wanted to try it.

Local Facebook groups are a different sort of entertainment. In the town and village groups I’ve seen, even ordinary questions attract sarcastic comments. Some aren’t especially funny, though I think the writers are trying. The replies can be ruthless enough that I wouldn’t feel confident posting there myself.

There was still plenty I didn’t recognise

I asked my community for funny videos and memes, and some submissions were older television comedy. Those reminded me that knowing a decent amount of modern British comedy doesn’t mean I know the classics. Whole programmes and performers were new to me.

Some of the meme compilation wasn’t funny to me either. That’s part of the surprise with a compilation, getting something I love followed by something that does nothing for me. The telephone boxes and the open-window joke, though, gave me stories of my own to tell.