I don’t know how many times in my life I have heard the phrase, “Hum, that’s unusual.” What is unusual to one person may be usual to another. We all must wear clothes, and so the clothing worn by those around us is the first thing we notice about each other, if they are unusual. In the 1940’s, it was fairly common for men to wear white socks with dark suits and everything else as well. Today it is very unusual to see a man wearing white socks with a Sunday best dark suit. When I see it today, I think, ‘Hum, that’s unusual.’ He must be a throwback from the 1940’s. Then I am reminded of this morning, as I was getting dressed, I started to put on dark socks while wearing a light tan pair of slacks. My wife said to me, “You can’t wear dark socks with light pants. People will think you are strange.” ( I think I read somewhere that strange is a synonym for unusual.)
It was common in the 1940’s to see women of all sizes and shapes wearing a skirt (all women wore skirts or dresses in those days) with ankle socks (anklets) of all colors, whether they went with their skirt color or not. Many of them would roll the sock down in a neat little roll. I guess they did so to show more of their, off times, unshaved legs. When you see women wearing socks that way today, you say, “Hum, that’s unusual.” Albert Einstein was quoted as saying, “Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing (which is something), wearing stripes with plaid is easy.”
The world is full of the unusual, because we are human beings born into a beautiful, but unusual world. Unusual means different. And the synonyms include: abnormal, amazing, astonishing, atypical, awe-inspiring, awesome, bizarre, conspicuous, curious, distinguished, eminent, exceptional, extraordinary, far-out, inconceivable, incredible, memorable, noteworthy, odd, out of the ordinary, outstanding, phenomenal, prodigious, prominent, queer, rare, refreshing, remarkable, significant, singular, something else, special, strange, surprising, uncommon, unconventional, unexpected, unfamiliar, unique, unparalleled, unwonted, and weird. There are a lot of things in this world that are described by one or more of the above synonyms. I venture to say that we can each claim an unusual trait or two, in the way we look, walk, dress, talk, behave, etc.
I tell stories and jokes to some elderly residents in a nursing facility every Friday afternoon and the more unusual the story or joke, the funnier it is and the harder they laugh. I guess I never thought too much about why something seems funny before. The reason most jokes are funny is because they portray the unusual. The more unusual, the funnier the joke. I thoroughly enjoy a good joke, and in doing so I am not unusual. One story that I think is hilarious usually finds me laughing solo, “A farmer was on his hay wagon driving along side his pasture one afternoon, and he noticed his long time friend and working companion, an old work horse, was laying out in the field with its legs sticking straight up in the air (dead). He says, “Heh! I never seed it do that before.”
When I shared that joke, through my giggles, with my wife she said, “What’s funny about that, the horse is dead, naturally he has never seen it do that before because he has never died before.” I guess the story just wasn’t that unusual to my wife. Oh well, we can’t win em all.
It is interesting to me to understand that the unusual is both the source of jokes as well the source of the scary person or object. Youth often like seeing scary movies, because it is a rush of adren- alin for them. The scary person or thing about the movie is what makes it unusual. Whether it be hairy, slimy, fangs for teeth or bulging eyes, it doesn’t matter. Its unusualness is what scares them. I remember our boys, when they were young, would often try to scare each other, and when one would come at the other with a scary face or with a mask on, the first reaction was laughter. The laughter would then turn to a fearful expression and then a scream as the brother monster continued toward them. The unusual can be both funny and scary.
Possibly each of our unique individual and unusual characteristics are what attracts us to those who eventually become our spouses. That would be an interesting study. I, for one, have always been drawn to the unusual, not in a critical sense but more in a curious sense. We all have unusual characteristic(s), and those are often the thing about a person that is attractive to me. May Heavenly Father bless us to enjoy and appreciate each other’s unusualness.