FOLLOW-UP: I´m hilarious again.

All it took was some red wine, a festive atmosphere, and one gutsy shot at glory, and just like that, the drought was over!

Here´s the scene:

A birthday celebration for Kandi in the common courtyard, featuring a delicious brisket, some typical Costa Rican gallo pinto (rice and beans), and one of the best homemade birthday cakes ever made. The whole family is in attendance, as are the ladies from the neighborhood. It´s a packed house, the wine is flowing, and the conversation is lively -- everything from how certain indigenous fruits make men impotent to slang words that we probably shouldn´t be discussing in front of the children (ie, large breasts = pechugas).

Somehow the conversation switches over to the horrendous roads and driving conditions here and I´m pretty sure I hear 18-year old Rolando say something about ¨el culo del camion¨(TRANSLATION: The truck´s ass). He´s mid-sentence but I cut him off.

¨I´m sorry, but did you just say ´the truck´s ass?´¨I ask.

¨Yes,¨he replies.

¨Truck´s here have asses?¨I inquire, expecting the usual crickets.

¨Yes,¨says Rolando.

¨If you say so,¨I reply to a chorus of chuckles. And that was it. I had officially broken the spell of fall-flat-on-their-face jokes here in Costa Rica with the simplest of punchlines. So I allowed myself to briefly enjoy the laughs as they started to taper off, but then immediately, something inside me wasn´t satisified. This could be it, I thought. With only a week left here, this may be my best shot at some true laughter. People are drunk, the mood is light, and the cake & brisket crash is at least 10 minutes away. Plus, I´ll never be satisfied with having come to Costa Rica for a month and having gotten only a few chuckles. So with the last of the chuckles dying down, I went for it.

I stood up as though I were leaving and said, ¨Womens´breasts are pechugas and trucks have asses. That´s it...I can go back to The States now.¨

I stood and waited for what felt like hours, thinking, ¨Oh please don´t let this joke fall flat - I´m feakin´STANDING this time.¨ Eventually though, I heard the unmistakable sounds of a well-timed joke. I glanced around, and everyone was in stitches. One of the neighborhood gals slapped at her knees. The kids were practically in tears. I think someone even spewed some frosting across the table at me. Ya know, I gotta´tell you: if there ever was a time when it felt good to be pelted in the cheek by someone else´s half-chewed cake, this was it.