Reflecting On Jokes (Open)

It took a few days but he finally did it, Shane found the pool, and he had to say he was not disappointed. It was clean, indoor, and surprisingly quiet, more so than the library but that probably had to do with the fact that it was winter and he was a few weeks early. Oh well, he shrugged and went back to his original goal, reading. He sat down near the shallow end of the pool, having already changed into swim suit in case he did fall in which was likely, and put his bag and 'leg' to his side while pulling out a worn out manga.
"Sis would have a laugh at this one, a one legged kid goes to a pool to do what? Read" he said aloud to himself while shaking his head "I could probably work on the punchline a little."
Soon he went quiet and dipped a foot into the pool before quickly flipping through the comic, eyes taking in words way too fast even if he had read it already. It took a few moments to register but he had heard a door slam shut and nearly lost his book, said item flipping several times in the air before he caught it and fell backwards.
"Who comes into a pool at this time-oh wait pool" Shane accidentally thought aloud to himself before chuckling at some joke he thought of.

Jimmy walked out of the changing rooms, he'd been coming to the pool periodically since he first met Ellie, it was a good cool-down and it kept his aching muscles working a little longer while also soothing them. As he breezed his way towards the pool, a boy holding a comic book in his hands fumbled and nearly lost it, catching it and toppling backwards.

"Well, I guess you answered your own question there." Jimmy said with a laugh.

"Yeah well I is usually a good conversationalist for me"

Shane replied with a chuckle, purposely messing up his sentence, before glancing up and adding

"but least I is smart, unlike myself who's kinda quiet, and me who's a bit of a dick."

He snickered a bit at his odd joke, before finally sitting up and looking at the person who'd cause him to almost lose his book.

"They all share the weird name Shane Mcloud, if you can believe that."

Was it one of the most odd ones for Shane to introduce himself, yes it was, was it one of his favorite, again yes.

"You say it don't be like it is but it do?" Jimmy asked, feigning confusion for a moment before bursting out into laughter.

"Nice to meet you, Shane. I'm Jimmy." He said, sitting at the poolside, and dipping his legs into the water. He was suddenly more interested in speaking to this new acquaintance than he was about swimming.

Shane now had a wide grin on his face at his reply to the joke before placing his book to his side. He held out a hand before saying with a grin

"Nice to meet ya jimmy."

Jimmy shook Shane's outstretched hand.

"So what brings you around here? Wanted a quiet place to read? Guess I fucked that one up for you a bit, so I'm sorry. Anyway, since we're here, tell me about yourself, what do you like to do?"

Shane stared a bit after the barrage of questions, before he let out another laugh. This guy was easily the most excited and crazy person he'd met here, which equaled someone he could very easily get along with.

"Reading, yes you kinda did considering my comic nearly did a six out of ten dive into the pool, and it's no problem. As you can see my career as a pirate is halfway near completion, I'm a comedian and geek by nature with an addiction to caffeine, yourself?"

Shane bounced back an equal number of answers, punctuating his pirate joke with a patting of his stump. He always figured he should get that out of the way kinda, if you don't act awkward bout your problem then hopefully it won't make things awkward.

"A Pirate? Well, you're still missing the beard, the eyepatch, the parrot and the boat. As far as I'm aware, anyway." Jimmy laughed. "Well, you seem like somebody I could get along with, if that's the case. I think I have a crippling addiction to caffeine myself."

"Oi how do you know I don't have a parrot and a boat? Maybe one's at the vet and the others at the docks" Shane argued with a grin "and ditto to you as well, though I'd like to know a bit bout the one who question's my pirateness"

"Like I said, 'as far as I'm aware', you may well have a parrot and a boat, but I don't see any current evidence of it." Jimmy countered.

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"Are you here to swim? Am I interrupting said swimming? and well in the words of a curious assumer, what do you like to do?"

Shane quickly countered with a smart smirk, normally he'd have made a pun or joke but he was having too much fun quickly shooting questions and answers back and forth. He honestly wouldn't have been surprised if people assumed the pair of them had ADHD or the like.

"I was here to cool down. Not literally, but y'know, muscles and all. I had a good workout, I'm something of a runner, and a gym rat, I suppose. I've got into the habit of cooling myself down here afterwards. Nah, I wasn't really that bothered about it anyway, I was probably going to just do this and take a few minutes to collect myself. Well, minus the talking, I'm not a talking to myself kinda guy." Jimmy responded. Part of his mood had been clearly determined by the adrenaline still pumping through his body.

"Ah yes I remember my days of running and going to gym, I mean look at these guns"

Shane lifted up an arm and flexed as barely a bump appeared, before exploding into laughter

"pfffffft hahahaha, yeah that's kinda lie if ya can't tell, though swimming was nice...anywho I'm more the talking to myself kinda guy, and well myself's reflection makes a pretty good audience when ya need to test a few jokes."

"Oh, better make sure not to piss you off, man. A punch from those things would have me out cold." Jimmy joked.

"Well, something's better than nothing. While you have a captivated audience of me, myself and I, do you have anything you want to try out?"

"Uh oh er hrm hmmmm."
Shane laugh slowed to snickering before stopping as he rested his head in a hand, attempting to think a joke while lazily kicking the water.

"Alright I got one, so what's worse than raining buckets?"

The less than sunny weather obviously inspired this one.

Jimmy smiled, genuinely curious as to where Shane was headed with his joke.
"I don't know, raining bricks?" He asked, hazarding a guess at Shane's potential punchline.

"Np[e hailing taxis"
Shane snickered at his own punch line
"I hear it's more common in New York if ya believe that."

Jimmy laughed at Shane's joke.
"Hey, that's pretty good."

"I can, actually, those guys must have it bad."

"Whistles are usually quickly by a smash"

Shane chuckled before looking over, he was still curious bout the excitable fellow and asked.

"So you got any jokes?

"Afraid not. If I'm not making fun of myself, I'm pretty inept with jokes." Jimmy responded.

"Hrm I'm not one for encouraging self deprecating humor, kinda ironic considering it's one of my most used ones."

Shane admitted while rubbing the back of his head with a nervous chuckle.Maybe he should've practiced what he preached but it was kinda hard with how easy those jokes were for him. Quick to shake away that depressing thought, he smiled before quickly asking

"So uh been here long?..at the school by the way, not the pool before ya give me an answer that well I would give."

"It's just in my nature, I guess. It's what I'm good at. I'm in no small supply of confidence for the most part, so it's good to make sure I squash my own ego every now and then. That's how I see it. Plus, why bother taking myself so seriously? I'm just here to live my life, y'know?" Jimmy ruminated.

"Got here a week before term started. Wanted some time to adjust and get used to the place. Yourself?"

"You really are an odd ball aren't ya...I like ya"

Shane admitted with a laugh, and it was the truth, this guy had a very comfortable aura about him.

"Uh I think two weeks earlier...yeah two weeks cause I kinda wanted to get her super faster and adjusted to the weather along with the school and stuff...course I only just now found the pool so you can guess how well it's going."

He laughed again while rubbing the back of his head emberessed.

"Takes one to know one. You'll hear no denial from me." Jimmy admitted, grinning.

"Hey, you're only about two weeks behind me on this whole pool thing. I thought the same thing, but I think living in Atlanta probably wasn't the best preparation for a Canadian winter." He said with a chuckle.

"Started off in Ireland went to California and ended up here"

Shane laughed as he glanced over with a grin

"Neither Rain Sun nor Snow will stop this comedian from moving about."