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Somehow, I Doubt a ‘Knock-Knock’ Joke Will Cut It

Well, that was disappointing.

Those washer ‘n’ dryer bastards came on Friday — on time, no less — and did nothing worth writing about. They came, dropped off the goods, took the old shit away, and left. No funny talk, they didn’t drop anything on their feet, and nobody dropped their pants the whole time — even me. I knew I should’ve tried that, just to get the hilarity rolling. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anyway, on the bright side, all the laundry is done now. Not folded or anything like that — we’ve got piles of clothes all over the damned house. They’re stacked on hte couches, stuffed into baskets, and strewn on the beds. I’m pretty sure I spent last night spooning a large beach towel. Rather, um, enthusiastically, as it turns out. We might have to wash that one again.

But enough about the laundry, and my nighttime abuse thereof. Let’s talk about a more pressing matter: I need a ‘go-to joke’.

Now, I’m not talking about killer onstage material, or writing a joke here that’ll make people upsnort their coffee onto their monitors. In a good way, of course. Those things would be nice, but it’s not all that likely. Besides, all my standup and blog stuff is loooooong. I don’t have ‘jokes’, per se; I tell silly stories, and hope that somewhere in the wave of drivel, there’s a drop or two of ‘entertaining’. And I’m cool with that.

But here’s the thing — when people find out I do comedy, or that I’m trying to get into humor writing, they always say the same thing:

‘Well… say something funny. Give me your best joke.‘

Now, never mind that it’s wholly inappropriate to put someone on the spot like that, just because of their professional aspirations. I mean, you don’t hear people asking med students for their ‘best incision’, or bugging people in law school to ‘do something slimy’. It’s not fair, really.

But it’s also not going away. And I can’t very well respond with one of my regular long bits — besides the time issue, it’s probably not considered ‘polite’ to throw six minutes of dick jokes at someone who’s just pretending to be interested. I’m not sure whether Miss Manners has ever addressed that situation specifically, but I have a pretty good idea what she’d say. She’s kind of a stuck-up bitch, when you get right down to it.

So what I need is a quick, short joke — just one good one-liner — to get these people off my damned back. And I’ve found that I’m a horrible one-liner writer. Maybe I need the context of a story to think of punchlines. Or maybe I’ve got whatever the opposite of ADD is — I don’t know. All I know is that when I try to write one liners, I end up with scary crap like:

‘You know, it’s true what they say — there’s nothing funny about anal bleeding… once it happens to you.‘

Nice. Like that’s something I can whip out when grandma asks what kind of comedy I do onstage. She’d drop a load in her Depends, for crissakes. That’s not going to help anyone.

So, I’m still working on it — the perfect answer for that ‘yeah, well prove you’re funny‘ bullshit. And preferably, one that doesn’t involve bleeding from any orifices whatsoever. Or penis size, or hairy asses, or the word ‘bumblefuckery’, just in case grandma decides to take an interest. This isn’t gonna be easy, people.