When a joke goes wrong

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The post by @JudyEv just made me think of this - although it isn’t at all the same, but it is joke-related! Our village has a Facebook group. I’ve never joined Facebook so I can’t post on it, but as it’s a public group I can read so I have a little look now and then to see if there’s anything that I ought to know about. Most of the time it’s just people posting about missing pets, dog fouling, bad parking or sometimes something more serious such as a burglary or suspicious goings-on in the area. Quite a few people also run businesses so they advertise their wares/ services for cleaning, cake-baking, beauty treatments and the like. A few days ago someone put up a post advertising their ironing service. This was harmless enough and a perfectly reasonable thing to do. There were no responses until quite late in the evening when a local joker couldn’t resist commenting ‘This post creased me up!’ Their friend then joined in and there ensued a back-and-forth between them of ironing-related puns: ‘If you keep commenting someone will iron you out’ ‘Don’t get shirty with me’ ‘Button it’ ‘I’m flat out now’ ‘Sleeve it out’ ‘Not bad for comments off the cuff’ ‘I’m getting a bit board with this’ I’m off now, I’m a bit pressed for time’ ‘Oh the irony’ ‘Zip it!’ I thought they were quite funny and just a bit of harmless fun. The original person (offering ironing) didn’t find it funny at all though. She got very upset by the whole thing and responded ‘What is wrong with u, ur like them trolls picking on people to laugh at u get a life? this is so hard, money is hard sad ?? people’ and when others tried to explain that it was just a few harmless clothes-related jokes she responded with ‘I had people laughing at my ad I have to take that it was not funny u sad people go to hell????????? So is that what u do laugh at innocent people u sad people.’ This left many people very confused. How could anyone get so worked up about a few puns? It also revealed that the ironing person was actually rude and foul-mouthed and was also only partially literate with apparently no idea of how to use punctuation. (The original ad was mostly OK, presumably she must have taken a bit more time and care over that). This whole situation rather backfired and didn’t really have the desired effect as anyone who was thinking of asking for ironing was put off by her aggressive attitude. One person commented ‘To think I was considering hiring her to do my ironing but with a disturbing attitude I wouldn’t dream of it now !’ and another said ‘Wouldn't employ someone who clearly can't take a joke as I can see the gentlemen above are having a little clothes joke with no rudeness involved only to be abused by a filthy potty mouth!’ Oh dear. It’s a shame that someone who apparently is struggling to make ends meet and looking for some extra work ended up putting off any potential customers! The danger of social media I guess - if she had put a poster in the post office window in the old-fashioned way and anyone had made ironing-related jokes she would probably never have known about it! Do you think the jokes were unacceptable? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.