I love everything about this piece, including being let in on this glorious joke. It's such a beautiful ode to friendship, and enjoying our lives. It's just perfect, and I'm so glad to have read it. Wonderful stuff, Rachel!
Oh, we have an inside joke in our family based on my son's school journal in 3rd grade. It was, like, a 50-page journal that he was supposed to be keeping for the entire year, and the only writing in it was the first page, which said in scraggly pencil-writing: "Today I had a good"
After that, nothing. Just blank pages. So that's kinda our family shorthand for an inexplicable day, OR an abandoned project of any kind. It's a multi-use joke, but one that I love so much. He's 13 now, and finally thinks it's funny, too.
Inside jokes are practically the only language that I speak with family and close friends. Inside jokes are my love language. I was just in Montreal and Vermont with friend of almost 40 years and well, you can imagine...
omg Rachel, this is LIKE, THE BEST. Brilliantly written. I love how you imagine the going forward to 80-something (aka [b]old age) and even the perfect epitaph for your gravestone.
Such a great post on the morphing of an inside joke and along the way pulling others in. Everyone is welcome to the inside joke. I love it!
As I sit here fishing my brain for a long standing inside joke, I chuckle trying to remember when my husband and I would randomly say, "Its a funny hat". I suppose we got in on the Norm Macdonald SNL skit of Jeopardy. Norm Macdonald as Burt Reynolds calling himself Turd Ferguson. Anytime I watch that skit, and its so cleverly stupid, I laugh.
"Its a big hat, its funny" would just randomly pop into our conversation.
This probably started about 20 years ago.
Somehow it has morphed into me randomly singing the words "Its like Turd Ferguson, Turd Ferguson is all I need" to the tune of Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi. When i start singing it my husband and son join in.
A few months ago my husband showed me a T shirt he found online. I bought it for him and my brother.
It reads, "Turd Ferguson For President 2024". Norm Macdonald impersonating Burt Reynolds wearing "a big hat". In the corner it says, "I'll be a funny president".
(Great piece, Rachel) Yes, a mantra that evokes the endurance of friendship. My wife and her friend of forty years can repeat, “There are no hats in Safeway,” and always get a laugh that, 40 years ago, implied, “You dumb shit,” but now implies, “I have always loved you.” I don’t even remember why there are no hats in Safeway.
What a gorgeous piece from beginning to end. I wish I had written it. The movement from anecdote to story to a meditation on friendship and joy: it’s a technical marvel in addition to being endearing, funny and true to life. Also, many thanks for the absence of snark, I’m as tired of it as I was tired of irony in the 90s.
Love inside jokes!! Ours was calling each other “Matron” after a holiday spent in France with a really close friend. We were 17 and her step brothers were about 12 and 14 and super into the Carry On films. Do you know them? Loads of awful 1970s innuendos, nudge nudge wink wink etc. they had been watching Carry on Doctor (or nurse?) and there’s a bit where Kenneth Williams says to the Matron “ooh Matron, more suction” or possibly he didn’t say that at all, but it became the holiday mantra, which evolved into “ooh Matron” which evolved into: “can you pass the butter please Matron” which evolved into an affectionate name for each other for my friend and I. We took it back into our friend group, and we all became “Matron” and they all went off the uni and passed it onto their uni friend groups, and it really felt like there was a time in the early noughties when you would be speaking with a random stranger at a party and they would be calling their friends “Matron”. Side bar: my brother got me a leather bracelet/cuff thing on holiday once and had it burnished with the word Matron. Well, he tried to, but either his spelling was bad, or the burnisher’s was, because it read “Matran”. So Matran took up popularity for a while after!
alex could have been anyone and this wonderful piece would have worked anyways but as it is HIM it would explain alot considering past comments in his posts by you and makes one wonder "who the hell were the other friends and how fucking talented are THEY?%!!?! and what goddamn college anyways,..."
twice both your age but for nearly as long as you have been alive and it is a shared joke i see now but always felt is essence of the hot orb of love you so well excavate...a joke with my younger sister concerning what we always thought was a love mismatch when our older sister briefly married (in sorta desperately rushed fashion) a gentle bespectacled scholarly type who's shyness was really a sort of mask for a controlling uber-untellectual nature. One day we had to erupt in hysterics later after we asked him what he had been doing outside as he entered proudly covered with dirt usually anathema to what you might expect from his sweater vests button down shirts etc. "I have been working in the garden" he declared proudly
"and have the sore back to prove it!"
My little sister a wonderful acclaimed novelist but even better loving modest kind good human and i do share a bit of a teasing mischievous evil streak and for decades have traded on that " and i have the sore back to prove it" whether it be her finishing a book after a few years, observing other's futility in whatever hysterically doomed small thing we happen to be doing....it is the swiss-army knife of inside jokes and just one of the many invisible threads which keep invincible love laughter joy
This piece is masterful! Such a beautiful, universal and relatable piece! Inside jokes are the connective tissue of our family. Favorites like "I sense a theme," which you have to say as if you are about to cry, originated with my 8 year old son on his birthday after opening the third identical gift. And "THIS IS NOT A F***ING FEAST!" which has been repeated in some form at every family gathering for the last 15 years since my husband, who is so calm he barely has a pulse, lost his shit at a family barbecue when I suggested he needed to cook more hotdogs. Thank you, Rachel, for writing this; and Alex for sharing it here.
I love everything about this piece, including being let in on this glorious joke. It's such a beautiful ode to friendship, and enjoying our lives. It's just perfect, and I'm so glad to have read it. Wonderful stuff, Rachel!
Oh, we have an inside joke in our family based on my son's school journal in 3rd grade. It was, like, a 50-page journal that he was supposed to be keeping for the entire year, and the only writing in it was the first page, which said in scraggly pencil-writing: "Today I had a good"
After that, nothing. Just blank pages. So that's kinda our family shorthand for an inexplicable day, OR an abandoned project of any kind. It's a multi-use joke, but one that I love so much. He's 13 now, and finally thinks it's funny, too.
The beauty of friendship. I love how both the relationship and the inside joke evolved.
Oh my goodness, what a beautiful and delightful journey this piece took me on. 💗
Inside jokes are practically the only language that I speak with family and close friends. Inside jokes are my love language. I was just in Montreal and Vermont with friend of almost 40 years and well, you can imagine...
these shared jokes are what long lived friendships are nourished by
each pollinating the other
omg Rachel, this is LIKE, THE BEST. Brilliantly written. I love how you imagine the going forward to 80-something (aka [b]old age) and even the perfect epitaph for your gravestone.
Such a great post on the morphing of an inside joke and along the way pulling others in. Everyone is welcome to the inside joke. I love it!
As I sit here fishing my brain for a long standing inside joke, I chuckle trying to remember when my husband and I would randomly say, "Its a funny hat". I suppose we got in on the Norm Macdonald SNL skit of Jeopardy. Norm Macdonald as Burt Reynolds calling himself Turd Ferguson. Anytime I watch that skit, and its so cleverly stupid, I laugh.
"Its a big hat, its funny" would just randomly pop into our conversation.
This probably started about 20 years ago.
Somehow it has morphed into me randomly singing the words "Its like Turd Ferguson, Turd Ferguson is all I need" to the tune of Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi. When i start singing it my husband and son join in.
A few months ago my husband showed me a T shirt he found online. I bought it for him and my brother.
It reads, "Turd Ferguson For President 2024". Norm Macdonald impersonating Burt Reynolds wearing "a big hat". In the corner it says, "I'll be a funny president".
I think Norm Macdonald would approve of this message.
(Great piece, Rachel) Yes, a mantra that evokes the endurance of friendship. My wife and her friend of forty years can repeat, “There are no hats in Safeway,” and always get a laugh that, 40 years ago, implied, “You dumb shit,” but now implies, “I have always loved you.” I don’t even remember why there are no hats in Safeway.
There are no hats in Safeway
What a gorgeous piece from beginning to end. I wish I had written it. The movement from anecdote to story to a meditation on friendship and joy: it’s a technical marvel in addition to being endearing, funny and true to life. Also, many thanks for the absence of snark, I’m as tired of it as I was tired of irony in the 90s.
dear rachel and alex,
i love the concept of an inside joke as a mantra.
thank you for sharing!
love
myq
Love inside jokes!! Ours was calling each other “Matron” after a holiday spent in France with a really close friend. We were 17 and her step brothers were about 12 and 14 and super into the Carry On films. Do you know them? Loads of awful 1970s innuendos, nudge nudge wink wink etc. they had been watching Carry on Doctor (or nurse?) and there’s a bit where Kenneth Williams says to the Matron “ooh Matron, more suction” or possibly he didn’t say that at all, but it became the holiday mantra, which evolved into “ooh Matron” which evolved into: “can you pass the butter please Matron” which evolved into an affectionate name for each other for my friend and I. We took it back into our friend group, and we all became “Matron” and they all went off the uni and passed it onto their uni friend groups, and it really felt like there was a time in the early noughties when you would be speaking with a random stranger at a party and they would be calling their friends “Matron”. Side bar: my brother got me a leather bracelet/cuff thing on holiday once and had it burnished with the word Matron. Well, he tried to, but either his spelling was bad, or the burnisher’s was, because it read “Matran”. So Matran took up popularity for a while after!
Hahaha this is amazing but I must admit I do not know anything about these Carry On films???!
They’re awful, but they were strangely popular in the 70s and 80s. Ooh Matron!!
alex could have been anyone and this wonderful piece would have worked anyways but as it is HIM it would explain alot considering past comments in his posts by you and makes one wonder "who the hell were the other friends and how fucking talented are THEY?%!!?! and what goddamn college anyways,..."
twice both your age but for nearly as long as you have been alive and it is a shared joke i see now but always felt is essence of the hot orb of love you so well excavate...a joke with my younger sister concerning what we always thought was a love mismatch when our older sister briefly married (in sorta desperately rushed fashion) a gentle bespectacled scholarly type who's shyness was really a sort of mask for a controlling uber-untellectual nature. One day we had to erupt in hysterics later after we asked him what he had been doing outside as he entered proudly covered with dirt usually anathema to what you might expect from his sweater vests button down shirts etc. "I have been working in the garden" he declared proudly
"and have the sore back to prove it!"
My little sister a wonderful acclaimed novelist but even better loving modest kind good human and i do share a bit of a teasing mischievous evil streak and for decades have traded on that " and i have the sore back to prove it" whether it be her finishing a book after a few years, observing other's futility in whatever hysterically doomed small thing we happen to be doing....it is the swiss-army knife of inside jokes and just one of the many invisible threads which keep invincible love laughter joy
intact
thanks
God is an inside joke
yeah and we get even by staying on the right side of the grass
Woah this is so good. And here she is laying down the joke again, building her fortress up higher.
This is the sort of thing that could have been a recurring thing on How I Met Your Mother.
This piece is masterful! Such a beautiful, universal and relatable piece! Inside jokes are the connective tissue of our family. Favorites like "I sense a theme," which you have to say as if you are about to cry, originated with my 8 year old son on his birthday after opening the third identical gift. And "THIS IS NOT A F***ING FEAST!" which has been repeated in some form at every family gathering for the last 15 years since my husband, who is so calm he barely has a pulse, lost his shit at a family barbecue when I suggested he needed to cook more hotdogs. Thank you, Rachel, for writing this; and Alex for sharing it here.