that's what she said

before we begin, the first sentence of my twitter bio says "#TWSS bot."

i never bothered finding out how this genre of jokes came about, but i love innuendo and wordplay enough to (some may say, excessively :D) indulge in it anyway.

"that's what she said" jokes are simple enough: reply to any innocent-sounding statement, which, taken out of context, could be interpreted as innuendo (wordplay, slang and all other such things are allowed while reinterpreting), with "that's what she said" or "that's what he said". or, if you're on twitter, #TWSS or #TWHS for brevity.

so far, so good.

the confusion arises when you need to decide between "he" and "she". and that's where i need to make a point.

the gender of the person who made the original (innocent) statement doesn't matter at all. nor does the gender of the joker. the gender *has* to be picked so that the hypothetical innuendo is as funny as possible, taking into account pop culture, slang, gender biases, and whatever else may work to make one side funnier than the other.

eg:

@TheSoothsayer_ said to @hinnaz: "they look so awesome!" (both people involved are women)
me: that's what he said.

yes, that's a he. why?

simple. ever heard a girl telling a guy (assuming both people involved are straight, to avoid confusion) that "they look so awesome!" (they, referring to *ahem* body parts here)?

me neither.

guys say that to girls all the time though.

and so, it's a *he*.

on the other hand:

@Sakshikumar: "Phew. All good now. Couldn't breathe there for a moment."
me: that's what she said.

no points for guessing why that's a she. (fine, sakshi is a she too, but that's irrelevant)

okay, enough lecturing for today.

TL;DR: picture a guy saying x in a sexual situation. picture a girl saying x in a sexual situation. which one is funnier? bingo!

scream 2

this one hit closer to home than the last time i woke up screaming. so much closer, in fact, that i was of two minds about blogging it, because the people involved might read it. also, i was extremely distressed when i woke up from this one, so i didn't have the chance to commit it to memory before i tried to sleep again. the actual dream started a bit earlier than this section that i can remember now :)

in the dream, i was at home, half asleep. not in the hall (where i usually sleep), but in the bedroom. on a mat on the floor. it was late at night, and the lights were out in the rest of the house. mom was asleep, and dad was about to. suddenly, we heard a splash outside. turns out that where we have a terrace in real life, we had a swimming pool in my dream. and someone (let's call him S) had just jumped into it. the splash jolted me out of my half-sleep, and i opened my eyes, in the dim light, to see dad getting into bed.

a moment later, the splashing got more agitated, and S started screaming for help.

i sat up, and was about to jump out of bed, but from the sound of it, S had jumped into the deep end of the pool, and there was nothing i could do as i don't know how to swim. so i screamed for dad to save him, but dad said he couldn't. when i insisted, dad said that whatever was drowning S would drown him as well.

i refused to listen, and got out of bed despite dad trying to stop me. as i was passing through the kitchen to the hall (which had the gate to the terrace), the splashes subsided. as the sound died, i started screaming his name. but strangely, only a gurgling sound came from my mouth.

as i was trying to scream, i woke up.

i was in my bed, still trying to scream S's name, making that weird sound instead. my brother was holding my hand, telling me it's okay, everything's okay, nothing has happened. but at the same time, i could still see and hear my dream. and in my dream i was still in the kitchen, looking out of the window. in the moonlight, i could see S's legs and sticking vertically out of the water, head inside.

as i watched, he leaned backward, legs moving towards the window, almost like a slow motion backward tumble, until he was sitting on the window ledge, facing away from us. but the slow backward tumble continued.

he tumbled through the window, the grill, the net.

and then by some strange twist of physics, he was sitting on the kitchen counter, staring at me.

except that it was a drenched, long-black-haired, ghostly-white-skinned, white-dress-clad (yeah, exactly like that girl from the ring) girl now. she was looking at the ground. and as i stood there, staring at her, transfixed, she looked upwards, straight at me.

this time, i screamed for real.

meta-existential-crises

that weird moment when you realize yesterday's existential crisis was triggered by a junk food craving. and then wonder what triggers the rest of your "deep" questions. #meta