Aren’t parrots actually funny, per se? Like pickles?
So here’s the crux of my problem with the world: I think this joke about a parrot is the funniest joke in the history of the world, and people mainly look at me blankly when I tell it. What’s wrong with me?
Maybe it’s because I can’t remember a joke five minutes after I’ve been told it. So I hold this one close to my heart only because I remember it? NO. I alone think that this is the funniest joke EVER in history. What am I missing?
Maybe I can’t remember jokes because I’ve spent a lot of time hanging around with people who don’t think much is funny. I’d sit in the English department coffee room and tell real knee-slappers, things students had said, problems with the elevators, who knows, it’s been a long time. What I do recall is Dwight St. John sipping his coffee and staring at me owlishly.
Then lawyers, particularly the lawyers at law firms: they don’t do jokes at all, unless it’s at someone else’s expense. I will say that the lawyers at AIG could work up a good snigger, but that was pretty much always because one of the business guys had really screwed up. The fruit was simply hanging too low. On the other hand, I’d get bored in meetings and make a joke, and you’d have thought I’d told them that their 401(k)s had been cleared out.
Was, therefore, my sense of humor defective? Anyway, here’s the joke—YOU tell ME why this isn’t funny. I maintain against all opinion to the contrary that it may be the funniest joke of all time:
A man who owns a parrot is really angry because the parrot uses horrible language all the time. The man doesn’t know where the parrot learned it, but the parrot is full of the worst sort of language, like, George Carlin level. The man pleads with the parrot to stop, but the parrot goes on and on with his curses.
Finally the man has had enough, and he grabs the parrot and throws him into the freezer. The parrot squawks and curses for a long time, then goes silent. After a while, the parrot says, “Please let me out and I will never swear again.”
The man doesn’t believe it and pays no attention. Yet the parrot, no doubt becoming colder and colder, repeats his pledge, over and over: “Let me out and I will never curse again!”
Finally the man relents and lets the parrot out. The parrot thanks him and promises again never to swear. Then he asks, “May I ask, though, what exactly was it that the chicken did?”
Best joke ever, right? Let me know in the comments how vehemently you agree.
Just as a post script, and because I’m half Polish, here’s a joke that I think is hilarious but I don’t get it. Maybe one of you can explain it to me.
You’re Polish, and you’re being invaded simultaneously by Germans and Russians. Whom do you shoot first? Answer: Depends on whether it’s business or pleasure.
Kate and I went to Poland recently and I struck up an email correspondence with our Polish intermediary there. He said he thought it was hilarious but he didn’t understand it either. So can anyone explain that?
The bottom line: I can’t remember jokes, and the only two I can remember, either no one thinks it’s that funny or I don’t understand it. What does this say about one’s relationship to humor?
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