Cop Humor
“Can the student’s verifying piece of evidence be one of the points on their data chart?” What do you think, was that funny? Probably not to you, but flawless delivery to the right audience at just the right moment, and I get a laugh every time. I manage a large scale testing contract. There are handful of people who know the ins and outs of the particular test that I run to think that joke is hilarious. Trust me, it’s funny.
A few years ago I had a chance to see something I’ll never forget. My dad and his friends were at a wedding taking pictures of the family. I got to view him in a whole new light as I watched him joke around with his photographer friends. He was going on about fictitious F-stop settings that seemed ludicrous to his companions. I didn’t understand a word he was saying, but he was running the room, so to speak.
I don’t know if there’s a name for this phenomenon, and rather than do any time-consuming research, I’m going to make something up and call it industry humor. Industry humor is esoteric by nature and therefore funny to just the people in or close to the industry.
Every group of people eventually develops their own industry humor. We like to laugh, it eases the tension and give us a little pleasure. When people are laughing everything seems ok, even if only for a moment. So humor fills a pretty basic human need, and wherever humans congregate, you can bet they’ll develop a sophisticated structure of buffoonery. Humor is pretty formulaic. The formula is this: scenario set up followed by an unexpected response. The unexpected response needs to be related to a typical response, but somehow outrageous or otherwise unorthodox. The set-up and response is of course driven and defined by every day shared experiences. Some everyday experiences are nearly universal, and the humor that develops here is also universal. Jerry Seinfeld is a master of this kind of humor. We’ve all been on an airplane and can identify with his humorous observations about the small size bag of peanuts we get in mid flight. But some “everyday” experiences are unique to specific groups, and therefore only really funny to those in that group, sharing those same experiences everyday.
Doctors will make jokes about instrument autoclave procedures that only the other doctors and nurses will get, electricians will play around by handing someone a 30 gauge 3 line wire for an application that clearly calls for a 12 gauge 2 line wire, and toll booth operators make jokes about foreign currency exchange that only another toll booth operator (or possibly an international economist) would smirk at. Another manifestation of this is ethnic humor. Easy examples of this are found in shows like Mind of Mencia, aimed at Hispanics, or The Chapelle Show, aimed at blacks. Both of those shows are actually pretty funny for anyone watching but I don’t believe you can truly appreciate the humor on the level it is intended unless you belong to one of those groups.
Cops have their own industry humor, the difference is that sometimes their special brand of humor makes its way into our lives by way of the “here’s a ticket and a smart ass remark” delivery. Like the photographer, or the testing manager, cops will tell jokes that only other cops find funny. Unlike the photographer or the testing manager, cops like to test their material on the masses, and again, only other cops think this is funny. Here’s an example:
Cop: Why were you speeding?
Drier: I’m sorry officer, I never speed but today I’m late for an important meeting.
Cop: Well now you’re going to be a little later.
If you laughed at that, you’re either a cop, or a jerk. But other cops, to a man, think that’s funny. Can’t you just imagine the cop from that example back in the precinct break room with a cup of coffee, standing with one foot on a chair and a big grin saying “so then I said to him “yeah, well now you’re going to be a little later!”. His co-workers all laughing, the dispatch girl batting her eyelashes as if to say “you’re so bad, but you told him what and I admire you”. Some of the rookies can be seen making mental notes for their future traffic duties. See, the joke was funny. Just not to you, or anyone outside of the intimate confines of the break room.
Think back to the humor formula of set-up followed by unexpected response. The response the driver from our example was probably expecting was “well, I realize you don’t usually speed, and it must have just crept up on you so I’ll let you off with a warning”, or “well, I’m sorry you’re late, but I’m going to give you a ticket anyhow”. But not “well, now you’re going to be a little later”. That’s not just unexpected, it’s rude.
I guess what bothers me about this kind of cop humor is two fold. First it’s at the expense of the powerless, and second it’s not particularly clever. He’s flaunting his power saying “not only am I going to give you a ticket, but I’m going to humiliate you”. It’s also a pretty easy joke to make. You were late, now you’re going to be later. Yes, yes, nice redirect. How long did it take you to come up with that? Did you think that up right now, or is that what you were doing while you were watching union laborers stand around a cement truck in the passing lane for eight hours? Clever would be “yes, I’m sure the meeting just can’t start until the guy driving the 92 Cavalier shows up”. This is still mean and exploitive of power, but at least it’s clever. These smart ass ticket response cop is clearly preferable to an over zealous cop who would give you a lecture about how your speed can cause a traffic which would make you even later, but really, why say anything more than you need to get the job done. Can’t I just be on my way? I already told you I was late.
Alright I’ve been pretty brutal here and made some generalizations, so to be fair to the cops; some cops are pretty funny, here’s an example of a great cop joke:
Driver: Come on, why are you giving me a ticket? What do you have some kind of quota or something?
Cop: Yeah, we used to have quotas, but now they let us give as many tickets as we want.
Hilarious. The guy was being a jerk, and the cop gave him a well deserved unexpected response. It’s ok if the guy is asking to be humiliated. The cop, as a human, has every right to give it back. But if the driver is being professional, the cop should act likewise and do the job we asked them to do. As Spiderman once said “with great power, comes great responsibility.” So please just give me my well deserved ticket and save the comedy for open night mike down at the laugh connection.
