Harold has provided my family and me with an innumerable
amount of occasions of uncontrollable laughter. Most cats are stand-offish and
do what they want. However, Harold is just the opposite. He is a quirky cat and
thinks he is part dog. He drinks out of the toilet, chases after balls and even
chews on dog bones. He will chase me around my house and want to have his belly
rubbed. In short, Harold is strange, but he is a great cat.
The funniest example I can think of with Harold is during fall
break my freshman year at TCU. I went back home during fall break and since it
was around Halloween, my parents thought it would be a great idea to buy Harold
one of those pet costumes. My parents went to PetSmart and purchased a
bumble-bee costume. At this point, I truly believed my parents had finally lost
their marbles. When my parents got home with the costume, they were so excited
and were convinced that dressing Harold up was going to go well. My dad ripped
open the package and told me to grab Harold. I reluctantly did. Poor Harold at
this point had no idea what he was getting himself in to.
My parents dressed Harold up in his costume. Once Harold had
his costume on, it was close to one of the funniest things I have ever seen. My
dad sat Harold on the ground and he refused to do anything. When I say he did
not do anything, I mean literally nothing.
As soon as Harold stood on the ground, he plopped over on to his side because he
was so mad about the situation. It was as if he was saying, “How dare you make
me look like a bumble-bee, I am a cat!” Eventually though, Harold stood up and
started walking around. There were antennas on the costume that messed with
Harold’s equilibrium. He sulked around the house, trying to bat them off. After
walking around for a little while, Harold decided to give up and sit down. At
this point, my family and I were dying of laughter. I think he realized he was
putting on a show for us, and so if he stopped moving around, he would be taken
out of his costume.
My family and I love Harold, so even though watching him
prance around as a bumble-bee was close to one of the funniest things we have
ever seen, we could tell he was not happy. His face resembled something close
to grumpy cat. We decided that it was best to rescue Harold from the costume. I
picked him up and took it off. As soon as the bumble-bee costume was off,
Harold was back to normal.
This experience was extremely amusing for my family and me. Since
Harold was not having a great time, I could understand how this experience could
be taken as being a bit cruel. However, watching him walk around as a
bumble-bee was hilarious. We love Harold and he is spoiled rotten, so putting
him in a bumble-bee costume for ten minutes was no big deal.
It is interesting, though, that my family and I thought that
this situation was funny. After being in Literature and Civilizations 2 this
semester, I believe that this instance illustrates the incongruity theory humor.
This is because we did not expect Harold to act the way he did when he was
dressed up as the bumble-bee. My family and I expected him to act as a normal
cat. However, he was upset about the situation and grumbled around about it.
This created an incongruity between what was expected and what actually
happened, making the situation funny. It is interesting to see the humor
theories in action. However, more than that, seeing Harold prance around in a
bumble-bee costume was downright hilarious and will always go down as one of my
funniest moments.
I had a similar experience with my dog one halloween. My aunt sent him a purple and pink monkey costume for Halloween one year and he was just as miserable as Harold was as a bumblebee. He immediately walked into a corner of our kitchen and just stood facing the wall refusing to be around any members of my family. When we finally took the costume off, he retreated to his bed and didn't move for the rest of the night. While he looked adorable in his costume, he definitely didn't appreciate it as much as we did.
ReplyDelete