Jan 12 2009
I Associated with Your Mom Last Night
This advertisement appeared in our local paper yesterday.
It just cracks me up every time I read it. It’s worded exactly the wrong way and I love that. If it had said “Dr. Crouch, urologist, announces his association…” it wouldn’t have been funny at all.
I don’t get it. ‘Splain it to me Lucy.
Well, after talking to Kara and discovering that we thought it was funny for two entirely different reasons, I’m not entirely sure that it is funny anymore.
Kara thought it was funny because the doctor is a urologist and his name is Crouch.
I thought it was funny because:
- The ad was intermingled with little “News Brief” and “Police Blotter” boxes, so “Urology” read like a topic heading.
- The word “association”, in the absence of any further details, seems almost intentionally vague.
In my mind, these combined to make the blurb read: “In urology news today, Dr. Crouch would like to announce that he has ‘associated’ with Susan such-and-such.”
Even though there’s a concrete medical meaning here, I feel like the brevity and particular wording set up “association” as some kind of really vague euphemism.
Well crap, now I feel like one of those jerks that makes you explain the punchline. Sorry.
See, this is how it’s supposed to be done. This one sounds much less sleazy to me:
There sure are a lot of urology ads in our newspaper.
Oh, I see. Much more better.
Maybe urologist is a cover term in Frederickland. “I’m off to visit the urologist (nudge nudge, wink wink).”
I don’t know why it would be when you can drive a few minutes north into Pennsylvania and visit massage parlors with names like “Extremities.” (Kara and I actually saw that one advertised on a billboard.)
Those Amish people get right to the point. Is Extremities near Intercourse, PA? (Sorry, Grandpa made me watch Beavis & Butthead over the holidays)