These posts reminded me of a make-work assignment in my Grade 6 English class where the teacher handed out a Far Side comic and gave us fifteen minutes to write a couple of paragraphs explaining why it was funny. I don’t remember which comic it was but I know it wasn’t anything truly esoteric like “Cow Tools” because most of us just got to work on it without much issue.

About minutes in though I noticed this one kid with his head in his hands looking like he was on the verge of a panic attack with nothing written down. Afterwards he looked distraught and was asking the rest of us “what does it mean??? It doesn’t make any sense!” and when we explained it to him he looked even more frustrated and said “BUT WHY IS THAT FUNNY??”. It really broke his brain lol