(“55 years and in that time I never once found a single soul who knew the punch line.”)
I remember telling jokes when I was four years old: Why did the Moron tiptoe pass the medicine chest? It was the only way the big kids (the eight-year-olds) would let me play with them. Later in junior high I would stay up late and write down the monologue Johnny Carson gave each night, memorize it, and deliver it in homeroom before the bell rang.
I’ve been telling one inane and harmless joke during clinics and when I judge for years. A very nervous 12-year-old kid rides by my booth, looking stricken in anticipation of her Intro C or Training Level test. I hold my hand up. “Stop!” Semi- terrified, she whispers,”Yes, Sir?”
And we’re off! “A duck walks into a drugstore and says to the guy behind the counter, ‘Give me a Chapstick… and put it on my bill!'” Puzzled, but as I keep staring at her, it slowly dawns on her. She giggles and goes off to have a fairly nice ride.
That’s my joke, darn it. I don’t know where I heard it, but possession being nine tenths, et cetera, it’s been mine. Until yesterday when a friend brought me a page torn from—God forbid—the AARP magazine.
I have another joke. This one’s not only stupid but also disgusting. I even told it in DRESSAGE Unscrambled as part of the story of riders who inadvertently speak out loud throughout their dressage test. It’s the one where the tourist tries to make conversation with an Eskimo who’s fishing through a hole in the ice. After being rebuffed several times with a closed lip mumble, in exasperation the tourist says, “OK, I was just trying to be interested in your native ways. If you don’t want to talk to me, fine!” The Eskimo shakes his head vigorously and with his lips still sealed and pointing at his mouth manages “Keepin’ the worms warm.”
My father told me that joke at the dinner table, probably when I was seven years old. I would haul it out periodically over the next 55 years, and if it didn’t produce a laugh, it would at least earn a head shake and a grimace. 55 years and in that time I never once found a single soul who knew the punch line. It was mine also.
Until one April Saturday evening a few years ago when Paula Poundstone told it to three million people on the annual Prairie Home Companion Joke Show. After all that time, you’d think I should get royalties!
So this is not a joke, just a minor item of note I ran across on local sports radio that I need to share.
The station carries the network feed from NFL games, but when they go to break the station inserts messages from small market (Ocala) advertisers, presumably to rake in more revenue than the tiny share of a 60 second national sponsor would get them.
So who are local advertisers that know their target demographic will be tuning in?
Well, of course, the muffler shop on South Pine. The three Burger World franchises along the interstate. Murphy’s dry cleaners. But best of all–are you ready–Triple A Bail Bonds, tag line “For all your incarceration needs!” Apparently it’s north Florida felons who move the needle in the ad rev world. Who knew?