Dana Cramer

You're only joking? Too late, I'm laughing

Dana Cramer claims she doesn't laugh.

“I don’t laugh,” she said. “I rarely laugh out loud. When I do laugh, it has to be off the charts.”

Much of the time, that out-loud laughter comes courtesy of her husband, Josh, who Cramer said has a dry and sarcastic sense of humor.

“My husband has made his goal to make me laugh,” said Cramer, 32, a stay-at-home mom of three. “By the time I realize he’s joking, I’m rolling on the floor.”

Some of his attempts include sending her funny videos such as a Monty Python skit featuring John Cleese as the Pope talking to Michelangelo about the painting of the Sistine Chapel. He also sends funny stories he reads on the Internet to her while he is at work.

“They’re so obscure you can’t believe they happened,” Dana Cramer said.

She also is a fan of comedy news shows such as “The Colbert Report.”

“I find that humorous to take the edge off the serious news we’ve been getting pounded with,” she said.

However, the funniest moments come at the end of the day, when her husband gets home from work and is retold stories by the couple’s children, Ezekiel, 8, Max, 6, and Miriam, 4.

“Josh loves to laugh,” Cramer said. “His laughter will bring out the laughter in the rest of us as we recount our day.”

— Rob Daniel

Iowa City Press-Citizen -- March 12, 2009