COMMENTS: the only joke i know

I am similarly joke-impaired. I know one about a pirate and one about a Quaker. (Neither one is very funny, at least not when I tell them.) But I've come to view this characteristic as an asset -- since I never remember them, all jokes are always newly funny to me.

Posted by Litza | July 8, 2004 10:09 AM

heh.

Posted by steve | July 8, 2004 04:34 PM

The problem with remembering jokes is that you can't claim to "remember" a joke unless you can tell it. That sets the bar pretty high - much higher than for most other things people try to remember - because the thing about jokes that makes them worth telling is never the content, which is what your memory is trained to work with. For example, I know there's a joke I've heard many, many times where the "point" is that the wife's having an affair with a guy who turns out to have been in the freezer (or something) when it got thrown out the window... but I have no memory of how it's told. Is it that they're showing up in heaven and have to say how they died? I think that's it. Yeah, and one guy died throwing the freezer out the window, and the other guy turned out to be in the freezer. Or maybe not. Hm. I have a very clear memory of being at a party in high school and being told this joke. I can picture the ceiling in that kid's house much more clearly than I can remember the joke. Okay, found it online. http://pages.infinit.net/garrick/jokes/refrigerator.html
Man, that's a terrible joke.

Posted by Andy | July 8, 2004 04:49 PM

that's my favorite joke too...or rather, the only one I can tell correctly. it doesn't work too well in german.

when I was in scotland, I learned one more, that i've somehow been able to retain:
a brit, an aussie and a scot sit down at a bar. suddenly, three flies all land in their drinks (respectively, of course.) so, the brit takes out a teaspoon and removes the fly from his pint and continues drinking. the aussie takes out his bowie knife from his ankle sheath and flicks the fly out of the pint and continues drinking. however, the scot carefully pinches the fly's wing with his pointer finger and thumb and slowly raises the fly out of the drink:
"come on! spit it out!"

oh oh, one more!

so an american and a schleswig-holsteiner are fishing together. the american says: "you know, our countries are quite different. if i got in my car and drove from one side of the country to the other, it'd take me three weeks!"
"yeah," said the schleswig-holsteiner, "i once had a car like that..."

Posted by chris | July 11, 2004 05:09 PM