this may be found humorous

i am so glad i was born when i was, because i'm not sure how people dealt with boredom before the internet was invented.

okay, right off the bat i realize that this is the beginning of a sort of painful, dave-barry-style rant, where i will inevitably make a joke about how people couldn't turn to youtube, wikipedia, or mario/wario slash fiction, so they offset boredom by saying "hey let's get married!" and then the next set of boredom was met with "hey let's have a baby!" and then there's nothing left to do with their lives and that is why people used to die of old age when they were thirty-four.

but thank god for wikipedia, because instead of going down the above path (though it could lead to a lucrative career as a local-newspaper columnist, which is tempting in an oh-god-please-no way), i can just give you this incredibly wonderful wikipediasm*:

A triple is a joke consisting of three statements (also known as comedy threes). The first two statements are similar, usually "straight lines", and establish a pattern which the third statement does not follow.

For example:

John was a quiet gentleman who liked to:

1. work in the garden
2. read literary works
3. devour kittens

Obviously, the third violent activity does not follow the first two benign ones. This may be found humorous.

this is amazing, non? but more important: did you see the part where i used a triple in the part preceding the wikipedia quote? that's called writerly skill, people. that shit can't be taught.


*wikipediasm, noun: a piece of wikipedia so incredibly wonderful that your brain and/or heart has a little nonsexual orgasm of delight that there is someone in the world who took a little time out of his day to anonymously add it to the internet.