Who's the clown in your family?

I returned from a week in Oregon where I met with my family to help my mother pack up her house of thirty years. Aside from hard work, questionable photos of me during my teenage years and toooooooons of potato salad (which I am still trying to work off with belly dancing), I realized one very important thing.

I am the least funny person in my family.

As a humor writer, I've grown used to a chuckle or two while in polite society and though I have yet to make my husband laugh - he will be mine, oh yes, all mine - I usually get some pretty positive feedback to what I've written. Girl, I have nothing on these people. My sisters married clever men, my brothers still have the ability to make me snort milk from my nose (okay, we've upgraded to wine) (ow), and I'm left giggling under the dining room table with my niece because I'm not quick enough with a comeback that would even stand a chance. I remember sitting around that same table as a young teenager and wishing I was funny enough to compete with their wit.

I'm still not there. But I'm gaining on them. ;)

Is there someone in your family that makes you want to try a little bit harder to sit at the grown-ups table?


Photo: My family clown, Vyolette, and her boyfriend, Vader.