This mildly amusing thought experiment - Canada as EU member - has a serious point.
Now, I am not by nature a very funny person, though I do have what I think are some amusing thoughts on how to survive a suburban cocktail party: (1) Grope the host; (2) grope the hostess; (3) leave early, feigning illness, before the conversations kill you.
But mandating that people sit still and forcibly birth amusing thoughts into existence does not at all reflect how we spend time with our thoughts in everyday life.
You may want to begin with an amusing one-liner or thought-provoking anecdote that can be connected to the situation.
If the imperfectly expressed thought — whether an amusing blooper or a serious gaffe — is unintentional, a mere slip of the lip, then such misspeaking is not lying.
The museum's curator of performance, Jay Sanders, recently showcased dancenoise, the potent performance duo who've done so much to break down those old theatre walls and make politics the locus of a frenzied, amusing, and thought-provoking style.
But it is possible to understand the speaker of the second example (if you don't give it too much thought) as reporting a trivial or playful event as an amusing story.
Our own thoughts and feelings can be sufficient to derail our negotiations, as Gino illustrates with an amusing scene from Albert Brooks's 1991 movie, Defending Your Life.
