I seem to have lost my sense of humor. The problem is, I can’t remember quite where or when I lost it. They say that when you’ve lost something, retrace your steps and figure out where you last saw it. I’ve tried, but I just can’t remember. It could have been stolen or it could just be under the sofa, even though I looked there, too.

What has replaced my funny are things altogether less appealing. In its stead, I have a great universal sadness and fear, irrational anger, a sense of foreboding doom and just generally fuzzy thinking. I seem to have misplaced my patience and tolerance, too. I think they must have run away with my funny. For what I would normally laugh off is now stuck to me like a magnet dragged through a pile of scrap metal. I am laboring under the weight of a half ton of unnecessary thoughts and emotions that I can’t seem to shake off. Without my sense of humor to protect me, I am collecting more and more detritus with every step. I’m just not going to get very far at all.

Driving the fifteen minutes to and from work is enough to send me into a blind rage. The constant barrage of news of Wall Street assholes, or the most recent earthquake, or the latest, greatest shitty thing to happen today just sends me into a funk. I am no longer insulated from it by my sense of humor.

As is typically the case with us single-minded, self-centered and oblivious human beings, I didn’t miss my sense of humor until it was gone. In fact, I didn’t even notice it right away. It took a few weeks of not understanding jokes and saying things that were attempts at humor, but were actually mostly gibberish, before I even noticed that something was amiss. And then, it took a few more weeks of narrowing it down before I pinpointed the fact that my sense of humor was just nowhere to be found.

After an exhaustive search, I have determined it is nowhere on my person or in my house, it’s not on the internet, it’s definitely not in the news anywhere; it just seems to have vanished. I miss my funny. It was big, but it fit me perfectly and weighed nothing at all. It was shiny and fast. It was wry and sarcastic and smart; it could come up with an answer to anything on the spot. I never had to worry about much as long as it was around. It made life a little more bearable, but now it’s gone and it’s been replaced by things I don’t like at all.

So, if you happen to see a sense of humor around that fits that description, please let me know. I might even offer a reward. It may be lost or scared, but most likely it’s laughing, as usual.