Put Down Humor

-
Recently I saw an older gentleman being given a gift by his family. It looked like a telescoping aerial with a fork on the end. And the gift backing said it was because he was such a “freeloader.” Apparently the idea is that the fork could be used by this greedy old man to take food away from other people’s plates.

I am certain that the people who gave this older man the gift thought that this sort of put-down, humiliation humor was great fun. Apparently they thought that the old man would really appreciate being labeled as a freeloader.

It is a bit ironic really.

This same old “freeloader” has given a very expensive wrist watch to the dad, some money to the mother to help cover her travel expenses to Europe, an SUV to one of the nephews when his wife was in need of a car (which he proceeded to give away), a GPS satellite navigation system to another nephew, and a nice digital camera to one of the nieces when her camera died. When this same niece decided to take a trip to Europe the old man gave her a European ready PDA-cellphone, and he offered to help subsidize the cost of her trip.

After being given this gift and essentially being labelled as a gluttonous freeloader, the older man thought about it for several minutes before reacting.
-
Then the old guy did his best to draw up what little dignity he had left, and in a calm tone of voice mentioned that he was a bit offended by being given this gift. His reaction seemed to come as a genuine surprise to some of the young people.
-
One sees so much of this put-down-humor in American society today, that many people apparently are no longer even aware of how cruel and unkind it is.

-
-
-
-
--
-
-

-
-
-