That’s funny-- as a young college student in Detroit, we would often hop across the river to that magical land where the drinking age was 19, and I don’t remember having any trouble drinking Molson Brador out of these
A machine has been invented that can transmit the pain of birth labor from the mother to the father.
A woman is at the hospital giving birth. The nurse turns the machine on at 10%. The husband feels fine, but the woman says “More! More!” So the nurse raises the level to 40%. The woman tells her husband that she feels better, but could he withstand it if the rate was increased? The husband says he’s not feeling anything, so he agrees and the nurse raises the machine’s level to 75%. At this point, the woman is doing a lot better but still straining a little, so she and her husband decide to go all the way, since he’s perfectly OK, and the nurse turns the machine to 100%. The baby comes out, the couple leaves the hospital and comes home…
In a similar vein, this is from generations ago when computers filled entire rooms and people had not grasped that it cannot tell you anything you haven’t told it first.
A salesman is trying to sell a computer to the CEO of a large company a computer. “This machine knows everything. If you can state the question it will have the answer.” The CEO scoffs. “Go ahead, try it,” so the man sits down at the console and types,
I am [name]. Where is my father?
After a moment the teletype clatters to life,
Your father is fishing off the coast of Norway.
The man snorts, “Stupid computer! My father has been dead for over a decade.”
“Hmm, sometimes how you frame the question matters,” the salesman says. "Let me have a crack at it.
Where is [name]'s mother's husband?
The mother's husband of [name] has been dead for 11.34 years. His father is
still fishing off the coast of Norway.
Reminds me of one that’s probably been posted here before (probably also by me), but I tried searching various phrase combos and couldn’t find it, so apologies if it’s a repeat:
Little Jenny says to little Johnny at school one Friday “all adults have a deep, dark secret”. “Really?” says Johnny. “Try it on your parents” says Jenny. “Say ‘I know your deep, dark secret’ and see what happens”.
So the next day Johnny goes up to his mom and says “I know your deep, dark secret”. His mom says “here’s $10-- don’t tell your father”. Johnny is pleasantly surprised at his sudden windfall, so he goes to his dad and says “I know your deep, dark secret”. His dad says “here’s $20-- don’t tell your mom”.
“This is a pretty good gig I got going!” thinks little Johnny. Just then he sees the mailman coming up the driveway. He goes to the door and says “I know your deep, dark secret”.
The mailman drops to his knees, gives Johnny a big hug and says “I’m so glad I don’t have to hide it anymore, son!”
I’ve heard that “joke” numerous times, Most famously (to me anyway) in Training Day. Roger tells it:
“Man walks out his house on his way to work and sees this snail lying on his porch. So he picks it up and chucks it over the roof into the backyard. Snail bounces off a rock, busts it’s shell up all of that shit and lands in the grass. Snail lies there dying but the snail doesn’t die. After a while it can crawl again. One day snail makes its way back to the front of the house, finally after about a year the little guy crawls back onto the porch. Right then the man walks out of his on his way to work and sees this snail again. So he looks at it and says. ‘What the fuck’s your problem’”
I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now. Note that in some tellings the man says ‘what the fuck is your problem’ and sometimes it’s the snail. Can the joke still work if the line is told from a different perspective?
In Training Day, Roger follows it up with, ‘figure out that joke and you will figure out the streets’ as if it’s some sort of morality tale. And indeed, there are parts to the film that mimic that joke.
Here’s two posts from Reddit, speculating…
Is everybody overthinking it, and it’s just a no soap radio type of thing? And if so, does a no soap radio thing work on a message boards.
Sorry, I don’t mean to kill the mood - I’ve just honestly always been confused about this joke.
Interesting. To me, it’s no more complicated than the snail has been raging about how he was treated for the entire three years it took him to work his way back to that house to tell the guy off.
Also, I think my condensed version is superior to the overly verbose “Training Day” rendition.
mmm
ETA: I’ve never seen “Training Day”. I think I recall the joke from a Drew Carey book.
