Funny?

Mac came home from school on Friday sporting a red nose, clutching a picture and covered in glitter. They'd had Red Nose Day at School which consisted in dressing in their own clothes (I always felt a bit wrong doing that when I was at school, like I was out of place), eating "funny" food (jam sandwiches featured heavily) and telling jokes. So here, at enormous expense is the funny that Mac unleashed on his school mates:

Mac, no doubt shyly: "Knock Knock?"

Classmates in one bellow: "who's there?"

Mac, doubled over with laughter: "Nobody!"

Classmates, surely in confusion: "Nobody who?"

Mac, exiting stage left "told you, haha!"

I must admit I didn't find it funny. And tried to convince him that he somehow had the joke wrong. "But it's not funny" said I in confusion on Thursday afternoon. "Oh it is mummy!" he giggled and then roared with laughter for about five minutes. Later, as I was tucking him in I broached the subject again by asking him to tell me his joke again, whilst I reprised the role of his classmates. More giggling followed the "joke" and I tried to slip in a few of my own funny Knock Knock jokes as a substitute. He wasn't having any of it. "No, my joke is funniest" he said adamantly, setting his chin in a defiant pose, just like his father.

"Did you get Mac's joke?" I demanded of said father when I returned to watch mindless television and drink red wine. "Yes, quite funny!" David said, channel hopping away from Eastenders in the vain hope that I didn't see it. I did. And tried to make the joke funny in my mind. I gave up after a while and concentrated on the unlikely story line in Easties.

"He'll be fine darling!" Bea announced the following morning when she bustled in to say she'd Done Something Funny For Money - she went into Claire's Accessories to buy some red wigs for Caitlin and Ian. "Lovely girl, it was awful. A slip of a girl with multiple piercings in her eyebrow and lip area asked me if I wanted my ears pierced as they were doing a special offer". For Bea, had she accepted this offer, it would have been her equivalent of scaling Mount Kilimanjaro. "They do it in the window of the shop!" she went on, shuddering as she handed over a set of deely boppers for her nephew. "I felt like I was in Amsterdam rather than Lewisham!" she went on, sniffing out the Earl Grey teabags and filling the kettle.

Lewisham? I asked my sister if she were okay, Lewisham not being her usual shopping destination. "I needed a key cutting place, Stephen has locked away my credit cards because of the credit crunch, I had to get a copy of his key cut and thought Lewisham was suitably, shall we say, suitable for such nefarious activities?" Talking of nefarious activities, I asked her if Stephen knew she had his key and had, in fact, copied it. "Don't be silly darling! He doesn't even know that I know he keeps it in his sock drawer! He thinks he has got the better of me, well, let me tell you, nothing separates me from my credit cards, not even my husband." She had taken on a crazed look at this point and started stroking her fringed bag like a Bond villain.

I need not have worried, Mac returned full of his "fun" day at school and revealed that everyone had laughed at his joke and he had won the Best Joke of The Day award. Whilst very proud of my tiny boy, I spent Comic Relief night, glued to the television, the words "now that was funny!" every time a joke was told forming on my lips.