A month ago I was alone for a bit with my two brothers, and it didn’t take long for us to start joking inappropriately. I don’t know whether it’s called black humor or just weird, but we have been known to laugh hard at ideas offensive to others.

We were in Steve’s truck, waiting while Becky bought coffee. The date was September 11, 2011. The tenth anniversary of the attack on America. You remember: the media was full of the subject, and there were a few of us willing to admit we were tired of it.

I think I get credit for the idea. I blurted from the back seat: “Hey. How about if we build an amusement park at Ground Zero? We can start with a zip line over the area …”

Steve and Andy jumped in. Immediately the truck filled with ideas for costume rental, heroic posterboards with face holes cut out for souvenir photos, ash-ball, and more. Terrible. Horrible. But we laughed till we cried.

It reminded me of the time the kids and I tried to come up with relevant Olympic games. This may have been in 1996, or perhaps ‘92. Someone commented about how dated many of the sports were. Who knew a discus thrower? How many fans were there, really, for Greco-Roman wrestling? We decided to make suggestions.

Our best idea, simple and elegant, was for a game of classic tug-o-war. The competition would be between teams from countries who are currently disagreeing about something, and the pit would be filled with the grossest, slimiest mess of mud and muck we could configure.

From there we elaborated. We came up with ideas for competitions in panhandling, drug dealing, gang building and carjacking.

Danny added a special area where any kind of performance-enhancing (or other) drug would be allowed. Why not? Choosing the right drugs is also a modern skill.