The Tenth round of Brett Andy voting… fire up those click fingers…

Back in the day there was a funny guy called Jack Handey who wrote deep thorts like:

‘One day one of my little nephews came up to me and asked me if the equator was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one. I had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn’t know, and I thought that maybe by laughing he would forget what he asked me.’ [Jack Handey]

and:

‘One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my
little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out
warehouse. “Oh, no,” I said, “Disneyland burned down.” He cried and cried, but I
think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive
over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.’ [Jack Handey]

or occasionally slightly darker ones like:

‘I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don’t want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then when somebody comes up act like they just woke up and go, “What was THAT?!”‘

These made me smile. They made other people smile. Some people would laugh out loud. A lot. Occasionally someone would hurt themself. Which made me think, I want to hurt people too. But with laughter. And so I set out to try and come up with my own fish-flavoured deep thorts and they became known as Brett Andy’s because well, you know. They are still a work in progress but I have made ten lists of them know and I would love to know if any of the following cause any of the above reactions. If so please leave a comment and name the one or ones you liked:

“Cannibal Pete was struggling to get his car started so I offered him a hand, a decision I would quickly regret.” [Brett Andy]

“She barked twice, following it with a low two second gutteral growl. “Oh no,” I thought, “Timmy has fallen into the well!” [Brett Andy]

“I was disqualified from the hotdog eating competition for chewing on a lukewarm pekinese.” [Brett Andy]

“Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. But sell a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day plus you’ll have some extra money.” [Brett Andy]

“Those who live in glass houses, shouldn’t.” [Brett Andy]

“The thing I find fascinating about elephants is their ability to shoot out a powerful stream of water for hours at a time. Wait, not elephants… fire hydrants!” [Brett Andy]

“Scissors are crushed. Paper is cut to shreds. Rock is lying there going, “Oh no, there’s a piece of paper on top of me, what shall I do?” [Brett Andy]

‘“Reddit” said Frog again as the librarian’s patience was starting to wear thin.’ [Brett Andy]

“I tried to call my fiance’. But her phone was engaged. That’s a case of unplanned irony right there my friend.” [Brett Andy]

“If life is like a box of chocolates then I wish I was born in Switzerland.” [Brett Andy]

“I tossed a fortune cookie into a wishing well and instantly created a black hole.” [Brett Andy]

“An item of clothing was in a race with some sports gear the other day. It was a tie.” [Brett Andy]

“I went drag racing the other day, but the heels made pushing the pedals really tricky.” [Brett Andy]

“I wonder if Scottish men at nudist beaches walk around wearing underpants?” [Brett Andy]

Cursive Wry T’ings

so TBV (the beautiful Val, my lovely wife) and i arrive at a pastor’s breakfast this morning and as we walk upto one of the pastors there he looks at her and says says something along the lines of, ‘So you have to put up with this hey?’ or some other kind of jesty vibe dunno-what-to-say-so-let-me-open-my-mouth-and-see-what-spews-forth witty reparte’… he was trying to be funny and it was fine… but a little while later they were introducing some new people to the meeting and the one dude’s wife was there for the first time and when she indicated she was with him an ‘oh shame’ or something emanated from someone’s mouth…

no big deal right? just a joke.

i have heard weddings where the pastor or best men make jokes like ‘marriage is like a phone call in the middle of the night – you get a ring and then you wake up’ and a hundred variations of that.

it’s just a joke. lighten up. it means nothing.

but actually i feel very strongly that it may mean quite a significant lot!

in fact for my wedding to TBV 4 months ago (this wed) we banned people from any negative wedding humour saying that for our special day we only want to hear stuff that builds us up and blesses and speaks hope and so on for the future.

if we look at the statistics (not a big statistics fan but these ones are pretty sound whichever way you look at them) we see that marriages as a whole in South Africa (and the western world at large) are not doing so great – in fact we are doing badly – as a nation we suck at marriage – and taking it further if you look at the stats of Christian marriages here they are no better – pretty much exactly the same as non-Christian marriage stats… as Christians we suck at marriage…

could it be that to some part where we curse marriage (in jest by little comments we make and insinuations and jokes breaking down marriage) verbally that curse takes up home in our lives (an invited guest)?

i am not saying that negative jokes/comments about marriage are the reason for our high divorce rate. but i am saying that i don’t think they are healthy and that they start to imprint the smallest suggestions or hints of ideas that we may later cling to as truth. and that can have disastrous results.

a marriage does not end in a moment – it is eroded over time – like water from a waterfall flowing onto rocks below that have become smoothed with age, gradually worn away again and again until they are no longer there.

and so i strongly urge you to speak blessing into your relationships and over your relationships and especially into/over other peoples relationships. speak life into them and not even a hint of pulling down. marriages and in fact all relationships are difficult enough (constantly under external attack) without us adding anything to make them even harder.

let’s FIGHT TO REVERSE THE NORM!!! we made bold declarations at our wedding that we want our relationship to succeed and that we hold ourselves accountable toall our friends and family who witnessed it and that we see them as being responsible for assisting us in living out a good and Godly and positive and role-modelling relationship.

relationships do work. marriage can succeed. But it’s largely about being intentional and persevering and fighting for and loving (with Christ’s self-sacrificing love) and doing that day after day after day – killing compromise and pride and dealing decisively with anger and selfishness and more.

my name is brett FISH anderson and i am VERY HAPPILY MARRIED to THE BEAUTIFUL VALERIE and i will fight for that as i choose her again every new day. how about you? let’s do this thing!