I once heard a variation of that, about a general store owner. One of his customers was a farmer who every year bought a thousand ax handles. One day he asked the farmer why he needed so many ax handles.
“I sell them”, the farmer replied, “Five bucks each”.
The store owner was puzzled. “But you’re buying them from me for ten bucks apiece. You’re losing five thousand dollars a year! Why do you do that?”
“It’s a lot easier than farming”.
Mrs. Attila comes in from work, and says:
“Hun, I’m home.”
I heard that from Rip Taylor in the 1970s.
They didn’t call him “Rip” for nothing!
Told this joke that I thought up on the spot while having lunch at school with my (at the time) 4th grade daughter. They were telling “knock knock “ jokes and they know a lot of them.
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Who
Who who?
What are you, an owl?
They never heard that one before and neither had I. New joke or has it been around for awhile?
I heard it in 3rd Grade and I’m 67.
That’s one of the few knock knock jokes I could remember. That and the “orange” one. (ETA: wait, I also remember the Dwayne one and the one where you say “You wanna hear a knock-knock joke? You start.”) So, yes, it’s been around.
Dilbert did a version of this, too. Sell software for $5,000,059, and include a rebate coupon for $5,000,000. All you need is for one person to blow off sending in the rebate coupon, and Bob’s your uncle,* you’ve got a five million dollar successful product that you released.
*Unless Bjorn Stronginthearm is your uncle.
I only heard this one on TV a few years ago. Stupidly perfect for little kids:
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Mop
Even if you have to honor the rebate you can show $5M on the books as revenue, and launch an IPO. Don’t think it hasn’t been tried.
Ahem, it’s “Smellmop”, and then you can be even more disgusted if they give the desired response.
Well that’s better. Don’t know how I missed that as a kid.
OK – I have to admit that I don’t get it.
“Mop Who?”
“Smellmop Who?”
Where does it go from there?
Smell my poo.
Okay. that’s really dumb. Which I guess is appropriate.
But the stresses and emphases are all wrong.
I invented a joke in the early '90s. I was sitting in a diner, having breakfast, and something made me think of the then-current phenomenon of “going postal”. By the time I’d finished my hash browns, I had come up with this:
A bank security guard snaps and starts waving his gun around. Not firing it, but definitely scaring the staff and patrons. The manager presses the panic button, then runs into the lobby to lock the doors. Then he sees a teller throw a roll of quarters at the guard. It hits the guard in the head, and he staggers for a second, then continues roaring and brandishing. The teller throws another one that hits him in the solar plexus, but not hard enough to disable him. She’s about to aim another one at the guard’s groin area, when the manager rushes over.
“Rose! You can’t solve a problem by throwing money at it!”
When I’d gotten it settled, I told it to the guy next to me at the counter. He guffawed, and since he was a total stranger, I doubt he was trying to spare my feelings. Since then, almost everyone has gotten a laugh from it.