Laughter

"You have no sense of humor."

"You just don't get the joke."

Oh, she got it all right. The ongoing gimmick was that she was wrong, bad, or annoying. For some reason, when an insult, no matter how direct, was framed within a joke, it was supposed to lose its hurtful quality.

But it didn't.

She didn't laugh.

She was that serious girl. Who won't get your jokes. Who looks at you stone-faced.

She'd tell her friends about her students, her children. Sometimes the stories were sad, vignettes often are. Mostly though, her predicaments left her friends roaring. Her too.