Funny Story

You're a news director at a TV station in a small city in the Prairies. It's about half an hour before the news is supposed to air and time is moving at double speed because you're behind and rushing to get things ready.

Time briefly slows down and you turn and notice the news anchor standing over the animation guy as he makes a graphic of a picture of a man who has been accused of sexual abuse.

"What should I call it?"

"I don't know", the anchor says impatiently, "Pervert. Whatever", and he leaves as time speeds up again.

The news cast starts and, as usual, you're still marking your script, giving directions but barely looking up. The story about the man accused of the abuse is cued up and you give the direction to bring the picture of this man on screen as the anchor talks behind it.

Then you hear laughing. But you ignore it, still marking your script because the anchor is still talking which means the story hasn't ended.

You glance up and see in your tiny screen, the anchor waving madly. And then you notice it. The picture on the screen is indeed the picture of the accused man, but there is also a title underneath the picture in big bold letters. PERVERT. The animation guy was apparently not asking what to call the file of the picture, he was asking what name to put on the picture itself. A slight misunderstanding.

Time slows down again and you're imagining what it would be like to be watching the news at home and knowing this man or being this man and seeing this picture come up with PERVERT underneath like it's your name or official title. So very matter-of-factly.

And you start to laugh. You join in with your co-workers and you're laughing so hard you can't talk and you're watching the anchor frantically wave and you give the direction to cut back to him to get that horrible picture off the air and he's not ready so you cut back to him while he is in mid-wave and he slams his arms to his side, trying to recover which makes you laugh harder. And the camera operators and the floor directors are also laughing now because they can hear you and your switcher in their headsets and you can see the anchor trying not to let the rage in his eyes kill everyone in the room. But you don't care because he's kind of a douche anyways.

And the laughter doesn't stop. Every time you think you have it under control, your switcher says pervert and you both fall into uncontrollable fits of squeals. And the camera operator eventually tells you that you better stop because the anchor is really mad. But you can't. And you don't care anyways.

And even though that happened almost 10 years ago, whenever you tell that story, you laugh until you cry.

Pervert.

See? Funny story.