These Times

I spent three hours the other day scouring the internet for some jokes and quotes. My only criteria for judging the jokes’ worth, aside from being suitable for the newspaper, was whether they made me laugh loud enough to make the cat raise his head from his indentation on the couch. I couldn’t find any attribution for the following jokes, which shows the value we put on masterpiece jokes. I mean, Vincent Van Gogh gets credit for his paintings …

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“An 8-year-old boy who had never spoken a word in his life was eating his lunch one afternoon when he turned to his father and said, ‘The soup is cold.’

His astonished father exclaimed, ‘Son, I’ve waited so long to hear you speak. All these years you’ve never uttered a single word. Why haven’t you spoken before?’

The boy looked at him and said, ‘Up until now, everything has been pretty much satisfactory.’ “

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“I never forget a face, but in your case, I’ll be glad to make an exception.”

— Groucho Marx

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A man is walking through the woods when he sees a bear charging at him. He flees, but he knows he can’t outrun a bear for long, so he starts praying, “Dear Lord, I beseech thee. Please, O Lord, please let this bear be a Christian!”

The bear catches up to the man and knocks him unconscious to the ground. The bear gets on its knees and says, “Dear Lord, thank you for this food I am about to receive …”

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“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”

— Dorothy Parker, author

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What’s it called when you have your grandmother on speed dial?

Instagram.

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A woman was driving down the road when a policeman stopped her. The officer looked in the back of the woman’s truck and said, “Why are all these penguins doing in your truck?”

The woman replied, “These are my penguins. They belong to me.”

“You need to take them to the zoo,” the policeman said.

The next day, the officer saw the same woman driving down the road. He pulled her over again and saw the penguins were still in the truck, but now they were all wearing sunglasses.

“I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo!” the officer said.

“I did,” the woman replied. “And today I’m taking them to the beach.”

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“California is a nice place, if you’re an orange.”

— Fred Allen, radio comedian

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A climber fell off a cliff. As she tumbled down, she caught hold of a small branch. “Help! Is there anybody up there?” she yelled.

A majestic voice boomed through the gorge. “I will help you, but first you must have faith in me.”

“Yes, yes, I trust you!” cried the woman.

“Let go of the branch,” the voice intoned.

The woman took a deep breath, then yelled, “Is anybody else up there?”

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“I worked with people like Edward Snowden [at the NSA]. Well, not people who took stuff home.”

— Wanda Sykes, comedian

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A gentleman in his 80s who’s dressed in a nice suit, with a flower in his lapel, and who smells of a smooth aftershave, walks into a cocktail lounge.

A beautiful woman is seated at the bar.

The gentleman sits next to her. He orders a drink, takes a sip and turns to her. “So tell me,” he says to the woman, “do I come here often?”

Author Bio

Kirk Ericson, Columnist / Proofreader

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
email: [email protected]