Chapter 136: Flipping the Bird
"Chandler, are you okay?"
Seeing the unusual silence, Monica predictably spoke first, looking at Chandler with concern.
There was no other way around it.
That was just her personality—the caring hostess type—and this whole situation was caused by the videotape Chuck had brought.
It was only right for her to step in.
"What's wrong with me?" Chandler said with self-deprecating humor. "I'm fine."
"Your face," Monica said, growing more worried as she pointed at Chandler's face, which was red from the slap.
"Oh," Chandler touched his face and forced a grin. "I'm really fine."
"That's it, Chandler's lost it," Joey grew worried too. "Can you get a concussion from slapping yourself?"
"Theoretically," Chuck nodded. "As long as you hit hard enough."
"That's not saying much," Phoebe smiled. "Looks like Chandler doesn't have a concussion, because he doesn't hit as hard as I do."
"Excuse me?" Chandler was immediately offended.
He was a solid 6-foot guy, and while he was often mistaken for being gay, his strength was no less than Phoebe's.
"Bring it on!" Phoebe, the street-smart tough girl, wasn't intimidated at all.
"Stop it," Monica interrupted, signaling to Phoebe and the others to quit provoking Chandler and preserve his dignity.
As Chandler's longtime friends, they knew his temperament. And as Chuck had pointed out, Chandler's self-deprecating nature came from an unhappy childhood—using humor as psychological armor.
But jokes had their limits. Push too far, and Chandler, no matter how funny he usually was, would completely break down.
Men might seem strong on the outside, but often their defenses could crumble in an instant.
"Chuck, you went too far," seeing that Monica and the others were ignoring the real culprit, Ross angrily defended his friend. "How could you show Chandler something like that?"
"I don't have any adult videos," Chuck said bluntly. "Unlike you."
"..." The paleontologist who frequently snuck into adult video stores froze.
"You're all overthinking this," Chuck said calmly. "When you first started watching, you were all laughing hard, which proves you genuinely enjoyed the comedy show. Later, when Deborah Vance made jokes about a friend's family situation that hit close to home for Chandler, it wasn't that the material wasn't funny—you just knew it was about Chandler's family, so you held back your laughter. Chandler was laughing the whole time, and only at the end, under all your prolonged, silent, weird stares, did he stop laughing and slap himself. Ask Chandler—was he doing that because he couldn't handle the jokes, or because he felt pressured by all of you, thinking he should feel bad about it?"
Everyone looked at Chandler.
"Oh my God!" Chandler jumped up, as if suddenly enlightened. "I actually hit myself because of you guys!"
"You're just making excuses!" Ross thought Chuck was just trying to make Chandler feel better, and he didn't buy Chuck's explanation at all.
"Really?" Chuck looked at him. "How do you think Deborah Vance knew all this private information? Did you learn it from Chandler's daily self-deprecating jokes? And if Chandler's dad had to tell her all these details, and since all this personal stuff was shared by Chandler and his friends in the first place, who do you think really can't handle a joke?"
"Peer pressure is powerful," Joey's eyes lit up with understanding.
"Please," Phoebe rolled her eyes. "I talk about my mother's suicide and my sad stories of living on the streets since I was a kid, but I don't see you all being as considerate of my feelings as you are with Chandler's."
Monica was quiet for a moment, trying to control herself, but finally couldn't help yelling at Phoebe, "How is that the same? Don't you bring up these stories several times a day? During holidays or when you need help from others, you mention it like eight hundred times a day! How are we supposed to consider your feelings about it?!"
"Okay, okay," Phoebe raised her hands in surrender, then shrugged and complained, "Chuck, I get what you mean now. So who really can't take a joke?"
"..." Monica was ready to explode with frustration.
"What the hell!" Chandler touched his face, which was still stinging from his own slap, and complained, "How could I do something so stupid?"
"Because you're a natural comedian," Chuck said. "You have a special talent for comedy. You've thoroughly integrated comedic elements into your every word and action. Slapping yourself, while abrupt, if we set aside Ross's unreasonable accusations and detach from the emotional context to view it from an audience perspective, this is actually a slightly exaggerated comedic beat. Some people need to rehearse this in advance, but you did it instinctively. That's genuine talent—better than most trained actors."
"Really!" As a professional actor, Joey closed his eyes and followed Chuck's direction, immediately nodding with deep appreciation. "I learned something new!"
This was the first real technique this high school graduate without formal acting training had picked up, besides playing extras on TV sets.
He'd learned tricks from soap opera stars, like the "smell the fart" acting method—when he couldn't remember complex lines, he'd pretend to smell something unusual, using that expression to buy time while he remembered his dialogue.
But what he'd learned from Chuck was genuine technique!
"You really think so?" Chandler looked at Chuck with deep emotion, and for a moment, the sting on his face didn't matter.
While he used self-deprecation and sarcasm as defense mechanisms, he didn't turn to other outlets because he genuinely loved comedy. Making jokes and making people laugh felt like a natural gift.
He'd once dreamed of becoming a professional comedian, writing down funny material almost daily.
Then he went into data processing.
There was no way around it—dreams always had to bow to practical needs. A few years back, during the tech boom, he, like countless other young people, had flocked to this promising industry.
In quiet moments, he often wondered about his abandoned dreams. If his family hadn't been so dysfunctional, if his parents hadn't divorced, if his mother—a bestselling romance novelist—hadn't repeatedly married and divorced, squandering her earnings, if his father hadn't run off with the pool boy, if he'd had a stable upbringing, wouldn't he have had to abandon his dreams due to financial pressure?
But he always dismissed these thoughts quickly. Even though he hadn't pursued the professional comedy career he'd always dreamed of, even though he was often praised by his bosses only to be harshly criticized later, even though he clearly didn't enjoy the corporate grind but felt trapped by it like Stockholm syndrome, even though he accumulated countless jokes daily that were often stolen by his friend Ross, who even submitted them to magazines, he genuinely loved the feeling of being with his longtime friends.
Jokes were meant to make people laugh—as long as they accomplished that, nothing else mattered.
Even though he'd unconsciously given up on his dreams, he was still thrilled when Chuck told him he was a naturally talented comedian.
This was recognition from someone so accomplished!
"Of course not," Chuck shook his head matter-of-factly at Chandler's moved expression. "I already said, setting aside Ross's unreasonable accusations. While Ross's accusations are unreasonable, they're also accurate and important. I was just offering you a plausible alternative explanation, which you might need, beyond just being hurt. Why can't you focus on the main point?"
Everyone: "..."
"I just said he's a deadpan comic!" After a long silence, Chandler leaped up again, pointing his finger emphatically to make his point.
This was one of his signature exaggerated gestures, and he wasn't alone in this—Ross, Joey, and the others were all masters of it. When confronted with shocking situations, they'd all jump up and point dramatically to emphasize their reactions.
It was perfectly normal behavior.
Of course, it would have been more appropriate if Chandler hadn't used his middle finger this time.
"Hahahaha," Rachel burst out laughing, clutching her stomach.
Phoebe and the others joined in, and the mood became cheerful again.
"Alright, enough," Monica said, holding her head.
Chandler was always a riot, and now with Chuck the deadpan comedian, the comedy seemed endless. If this kept up, her life would become one big joke.
That wasn't funny at all.
In the apartment, only Ross still looked sullen. "Since you already said what I said was true, why are you still calling my accusations unreasonable?"
"Because you are making unreasonable accusations," Chuck said bluntly. "Unreasonable here means lacking sufficient foundation to convince others."
"I don't have foundation?" Ross rolled up his sleeves indignantly. "When I was a kid, I was the Geller Cup champion for years, okay? Football! I don't have strength?"
"Runner-up!" Monica, no longer holding her head, smiled and corrected him directly. "I was always the champion!"
The Geller Cup was actually a sibling competition between Ross and Monica during Thanksgiving football games—one of them won, the other lost.
"I bet you couldn't take Phoebe," Chuck said calmly.
"Phoebe?" Ross laughed angrily. "You're saying I couldn't even beat Phoebe? That's insulting!"
"Oh really?" Big sister Phoebe said with a sweet smile.
"Of course!" Ross said excitedly. "Phoebe, I'm not targeting you personally, I just really resent him looking down on me like that. After all, you are a woman, and we paleontologists have to do field excavations regularly. We're actually not as weak as you might think. Ow!"
At that point, he suddenly cried out in pain. Phoebe had reached over and grabbed his ear.
"What did you say?" Phoebe cupped her other hand to her ear, pretending to listen carefully.
Ross: "..."
(End of Chapter)
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