Disclaimer: To people who feel these humour templates lack solid punch lines: These are NOT renditions of jokes, so the intention here is NOT to have you fall off your chair and roll on the floor clutching your tummy while reading them. These are TEMPLATES — which means they provide you certain situations — which are not uncommon — and how you could almost practise/rehearse YOUR OWN PUNCHLINES, in such situations. So for me the gratification does not lie in your immediate response to these — but when sometime later in life you encounter such situations and you end up using the responses suggested here. With this backdrop of grand altruism and noble intentions let’s get on with today’s template!

Humour template – 3 :: Salary equations

When someone tells you that s/he has got an X amount of money as bonus — and that amount X in your assessment is far lower than her/his salary — your response should be of mock-delight at her/him getting double their salary as bonus.

Not clear? This should help:

Scenario

Masood: You know, my boss was so happy with my work that he gave me a bonus of Rs. 10,000.
You: Wow! That would’ve almost doubled your annual income!

Obviously the difference here has to be exaggerated. For example this would be a limp comment if Masood were indeed earning Rs. 10,000 or thereabouts as annual income!

This template is not restricted to bonuses and salary increments. It can also be customized to various other situations — in fact any situation where the other person has stated a certain amount of money.

Scenario

Deepak: I bought this Nokia Communicator for Rs. 15,000.
You: Holy cows! You spent a full year’s salary on buying that silly phone?

In these situations the assumption is that the amount of money being discussed is far lower than the annual income of the other person. However, you can try a corollary of this template too — where the amount of money being discussed is higher than your assessment of the other person’s income.

Scenario

David: Dude, that 3-bedroom flat in Versova is going to cost me almost Rs.60 lakhs.
You: Big deal! I am sure you’ll be able to make that payment with the money in your wallet alone!
David: Huh?
You: Oh! At best wait till the end of the month so you could pay them in cash with your next month’s salary!

Poor David! That was a double-whammy application of this template :)

In fact the more I think of it, such money-equating situations are there all around us. I am already thinking of a few situations where I am going to try this template myself!

So try this template out a few times, and do let me know if it was worth your money. Of course it depends on how much worth is your money to begin with!