All joking aside

Have you heard the latest joke going around?

Probably not. Jokes don't seem to go around like they used to. I blame that on technology.

Oh sure, there are web sites loaded with jokes, and funny photos with funny captions almost out-number the cat photos sent by e-mail and over Facebook.

But when was the last time someone actually told you a joke? When did you last tell one?

Can't remember? I'm not surprised. 

Years ago, when you heard a joke, you'd work to commit it to memory so you could tell someone the next time you saw that person, or you could bring it out at the next party you went to, prefacing the telling with "now stop me if you've heard this one," hoping no one had.

You'd repeat it to yourself in your head, perfecting any foreign accent involved, embellishing it where the person who told it to you could have done better. You got the timing down just right. You managed to get the delivery to where you didn't start laughing at the punchline and ruin it. 

Sometimes gestures were involved, and the listener had to be totally engaged in appreciating the joke. 

It's all been ruined. Technology has made it possible to read a joke on line, forward it to a list of friends, and then it disappears from your memory as fast as chocolate can melt. 

You don't have to work to remember it or to repeat it. It just flashes by. Worse than that, if you send a joke through the web, you don't get any instant feedback. You know your friends may appreciate the joke you're sending, but you'll never know how much. There's no instantaneous spurt of laughter, no blank look until the punchline sets in and the listener finally gets it. There's  no groan that only a good pun can elicit. You'll never see the baleful look that would have come your way if only you'd been there. 

I'm convinced we older folks are losing our memories because we no longer work to remember a good joke so we can re-tell it. Technology has taken the fun out of the art of the joke.

And thanks to caller ID, gone are the days when you could dial numbers at random and ask the person on the other end if his refrigerator is running. What do people do now for pranks? Let the air out of tires?

Joke telling is a lost art. And the world is a sadder place now.