WHAT’S SO FUNNY:When a funny tale can be grave

Next February, Patti Jo and I will probably have been married for 20 years, and Katie’s been here for 17, so at our house you’ve got three people who’ve been around each other a lot.

That means that some of our conver- sational material gets used more than once. And over the years, even good stuff can go a little stale.

For instance, I have a little joke about my exercises, to the effect that if I don’t do my exercises, I’ll have to wear extra sizes. Get it? But even a classic like that can wear out, and Patti Jo and Katie didn’t laugh at it the other night. As I listened to them not laughing, it occurred to me that they hadn’t laughed at it for several months.

Every family has its catch phrases and anecdotes to offer outsiders. I’m given to telling Katie’s friends cute stories about her childhood. And they are cute stories. But for some reason, over the years Katie has gotten tired of hearing about how she fell in love with Dale the chipmunk on the Big Red Boat.

There is a providence in family life that protects the children, allowing them to leave home when they can’t stand these stories anymore. Spouses have no ultimate escape but death or the courts, and I believe more than one marriage has flown south on the wings of the story told once too often.

The poignant aspect of all this is that we’re not trying to be boring; it’s just that our brains betray us into telling these stories under certain circumstances.

Patti Jo doesn’t do it as often as I do, but even she is not immune. Whenever we go to Hapi Sushi and I mishandle my chopsticks, she’s reminded of the time she ate exclusively with chopsticks for six months, so she mentions it. Without fail.

I have a story about how my leg was broken by a tombstone, which I tell when we drive past a cemetery, or they show a cemetery on TV, or they show the movie “Tombstone” on TV, or someone mentions a broken leg, or someone mentions childhood.

Even our dog Booker has indelible memories of chasing some lizard or rabbit which he relives for us every time he revisits the scene.

One of the ironic curses of encroaching age is that we forget we’ve told these stories already, but we don’t forget the stories themselves.

On the bright side, with a little more age our listeners will forget they’ve heard them. Then we’ll all be happier, even with one foot in the grave.

One foot in the … hey. Did I ever tell you how I broke my leg?