89. Whoopee Cushion

Nora’s youngest has recently discovered the magic of the whoopee cushion. I’m sure you can piece together the rest of this episode yourself.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay. 

I love laughing. I love jokes. That is what sets me apart from other people. I’m not like other girls because I like to laugh. I think comedy is funny. That’s a unique aspect of my personality. I also have certain kinds of jokes that I just don’t think are funny.

Everyone has their own sense of humor, and mine is basically, and my limits are this, I don’t really like fart jokes. I don’t really like poop jokes. I don’t really love butt jokes. I have kids who want to, they tell me grow up to be comedians. They want to be comedians who have side hustles as. An engineer and an entomologist, um, respectively.

They dream of a career in comedy supported by a side hustle in the sciences, and I’ve done my best as much as a person can to try to shape their humor and to let them know that. If they wanna succeed in comedy, they’ve gotta make the jokes that only they can make. They have to be original. Anyone can make a butt joke.

Anyone can make a fart joke. Anyone can make a joke about certain body parts To be truly funny, you have to find what’s funny to you and make it funny to everyone. This is a lot. For a kindergartner to take in, but sometimes I think that this feedback is working. When he was in, before he entered kindergarten, our youngest wrote his first original joke and I thought it was brilliant.

It was inspired by his very prominent tan line we live in. Phoenix. Yes, he wears sunscreen, but he’s just got a different kind of skin than myself. And his tan line is stark. And this kid would ask you, do you like fresh biscuits? And he would say yes. And he would say, great. And he’d turn around, pull down his swim trunks and reveal his two blindingly white butt cheeks.

That really did look like biscuits. I thought the delivery was great. I thought the setup was great. I thought it was a pretty sophisticated butt joke, so I allowed it in certain settings with certain audiences, obviously. And then recently he wrote this joke, which I also think is pretty great. He wants this on a t-shirt, so keep your eye out on our store because this might be hitting soon.

It’s a bunch of dinosaurs. Hanging out together, and then there’s a flaming meteor above them and the meteor is saying hot stuff coming through again. I think that’s pretty clever. I laughed when he said it. I’m feeling confident about his future Netflix special, and then someone gave him a whoopie cushion.

And it, it felt like all that hard work I had done to elevate his humor was just instantly gone. If you are not familiar with a Whoopi cushion, they’ve been around since, I’m pretty sure the thirties. They’ve been around for a generations. Generations. It’s like a flat balloon made of like a sort of pinkish, powdery rubber.

You blow into it, you inflate it and you set it on an unsuspecting person’s chair. They have to be very unsuspecting to not notice a inflated item on their chair, but the idea is that they sit down, the air chokes its way out of the flat rubber, and, and, but the idea is that they sit down, the air chokes its way out of the flat rubber end, and it does sound like a fart

Since he got this whoopy cushion, it always ends up on my chair and I always see it, and I always sit on it anyways because nothing makes this kid happier than thinking that I think that I farted. 

Nora: Do I have a meeting now? No, it’s, it is 10:30. Okay. 

Q: Mom! Moooommmmmm!!!!

 So this is our routine now. He asked his brother or dad to inflate the whoopee cushion.

I sit, the Whoopi cushion farts.

Q: Mom! Moooommmmmm!!!!

 Hilarious, right? Pretty good. Pretty good. Now someti, now sometimes days pass and he moves on to another toy, and I actually do forget that we have a whoopi cushion in the house, and I actually do sit down. I actually am unsuspecting and I hear the sound and no, I don’t think I farted, but I am legitimately surprised.

Whoopee cushions are apparently a time honored tradition. I can hear that typing. You can, oh yeah, we can hear that typing. Yeah. Stop doing business, Megan. So whoopee cushions are apparently also known as ping cushions, windy blasters. Farting bags and raspberry cushions. Yes. I learned that on Wikipedia where I also learned that people have been playing this joke for centuries, not with rubber, but with animal bladders, and you wanna know why they’ve been around for so long?

Because I guess they are funny sometimes on those days where I forget that the Whoopi cushion exists and I sit down and it sounds like someone farted. And I sit down and I think we’re just about to have a regular night at home, but instead we hear a giant fart sound. Everyone in our family laughs so hard, mostly because he is laughing so hard.

And sometimes I think because it’s true that the dumbest jokes really can be the funniest ones. So bring on those ping cushions, bring on those windy blasters, bring on those farting bags. Show me your raspberry cushions and if it’s appropriate, your fresh biscuits. Some things are just funny, even the dumb stuf

OUTRO MUSIC

I’m Nora McInerny and this is, it’s going to be okay, and it’s also going to be filled with fart noises. I wanna know, um, where do you stand on this issue? What jokes do you not like? I also wanna know your Okay Things. You can always reach out to us.

I G T B O at feelings and dot co. You can send us a voicemail. You can email us a voice memo. Our phone number is six one two five six eight four four four one two tips. Don’t use AirPods when you record something or call in. And two, don’t use Bluetooth in your car. It is too noisy for us to use the files and we want to, we want to, um, this episode of It’s Going to Be Okay, was produced by Megan Palmer.

It’s going to be okay is a production of Feelings and Co. We are an independent podcast production company. We love our jobs. Your support means so much to us. Listening to us supports this show, but you could also share it with a friend who loves farts. You could write and review it, and I think that’s pretty much all you can do right now.

You’ve already done so much. You’ve already done so much. Let us know what we can do for you.

Q: Mom! Moooommmmmm!!!!