Humor that Flies Over Head

I apologize. My intention for this blog is to post in it as near to every day as possible. Sometimes, though, time gets away from us. Last weekend, time made quite a show of itself in the form of my great-gram's 100th birthday. Having lived many years with the belief that that side of the family was infinitesimal as compared to my mother's side, it was quite an experience to be standing in my gram's tiny house with no fewer than 1 great-gram, 5 great uncles, 2 great aunts, 1 aunt, 1 father, 3 second-cousins, and numerous family friends. I heard many stories about the town, family members I don't know, and my dad as a kid. Each story was as incredible and amusing as the last.

That being said, though, this post is about one of the moments of humor experienced not with my family, but with(in) the book I was reading.

"...'I'm also a master of boil-in-the-bag. Eating for one. Living on my own. Bit of a crusty old bachelor. Actually, in the papers, that always means gay, doesn't it? Not gay, just never met the right woman.' And for a moment, he looked rather sad."

--Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book.

Teehee! I love how things like this can be slipped into young adult fiction! I don't know if it's a bigger reflection of Gaiman's audacity or of the changing times. I'm sure many who read this book will giggle at the line just as I did, and just as my father did when I read it to him. Of course, there are others who will immediately ban the book just based on this one sentence. And when asked to defend their argument, they'll suddenly come up with many other provocative lines that they never saw before. But then, what good is a piece of literature if it doesn't tick someone off?