Sometimes it helps to have the right straight man. Then the joke becomes obvious.
My ex-wife and I were once watching a TV show about the University of Alabama. She turned to me, and without really thinking about what she was about to say asked, “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide?”
And I replied _________________________
My current apt. is a cozy two-bedroom downtown flat, perhaps 1200 sq. ft., a little careworn, and relatively inexpensive considering the glut of luxury (read overpriced) condos that dominate the neighborhood. The landlord’s agent was showing the apartment across the hall to some loudmouth who was wearing c’boy boots, c’boy hat, and sporting a belt buckle the size of a trash can lid. My bichonoodle was yipping a bit, so I was getting ready to take him out anyway, and as I opened my door to exit I heard the prospective tenant say “That’s it? Hell, back home in Texas I got a bathroom bigger than this whole damn place.” The agent dryly replied “Oh, I can see why you would need that.” I could have kissed her on the mouth for that, but I was laughing too hard to move.
:smack: I never understood what they were singing there.
So I invited my boss and his son to dinner one night. This is at the new place in San Antonio TX (I’ve left the company where my dad was CEO after he passed away), so we tell our daughter to be on her best behaviour, etc.
So we finish dinner and are sitting back. Sophie is sitting on my lap.
She passes gas. It’s obvious it was her. But, without batting an eye, she looks around at everyone and asks “Who was that!?!”
Hilarity ensued.
My best friends wife had a best friend also and the two of us didn’t really get along all that well. One night we were out with the larger group of friends and the wifes bf and I were having a disagreement about something that I don’t remember now. To bolster her side of the argument the bf looks at me and says “I’m smarter than you.” (Well I don’t know if she’s smarter than me or not but she’s definitely more arrogant than me.) So I looked back at her and said “Well I’m in MENSA.” That stopped her cold then she got up and went to the bathroom. After she left everyone asked me if I really was in MENSA so I had to tell them the truth. No. 
They all cracked up. All her friends said that was the first time anyone had ever left her speechless.
??? Chabad?
An explanation for a perplexed foreigner, please?
Here’s a line that brought down the house, but I don’t know exactly why.
A young woman in the same programming group as me had been complaining about filling out an online form we had to use. In a staff meeting, she repeated her complaints, saying at one point something like “it’s too repetitive”. I interjected, “You have heard of copy and paste, right?” in a slightly snarky tone. It broke the whole room up. I was taken very much aback because I didn’t mean to be that funny, and IMO it really wasn’t that funny. I guess my timing and tone were just right by sheer chance. Also, I think the first person to laugh was someone who was always making jokes (and he wasn’t much good at anything else), and maybe that was enough to start the laughter.
In any case, she never said another word about the form. But she got revenge on me later in a completely different way.
I will second that sentiment. There are more than a couple that made me ROFL.
I had to do a vanity search that took me back to October 99 for this one.
For this funny to work, surely the phrase must have been “Je ne sais pas.” not “Je ne sais quoi,” n’est-ce pas?
OMG, Shirley!
I bet that 10 year old still remembers that exchange!
What happened afterward?
Did he leave the room scratching his head?
Q
Not really. It’s the difference between “I do not know” (“Je ne sais pas”) and “I do not know what” (“Je ne sais quoi”) (The “ne…pas” which adds “not” to the sentence can be shortened to just “ne”.)
Edit: or maybe you know French and meant that the joke wasn’t a literal translation, in which case, you’re right.
I’ve posted this story before, and I beg the ladies pardon for posting it again.
Many years ago, when I was an MCP, I was attending a VW training class with a bunch of other MCPs, one of whom was holding forth on the subject of some spectacular oral sex he had been given. He had everyone’s attention and when he finished the story, I said, “I’d walk 50 miles for a good BJ.” A few people giggled and I then said, “And 49 for a bad one.” The timing was accidental but perfect and the entire group erupted.
I just didn’t know any better back then.
I have two good ones. Both kind of crass.
My friends were over and we were getting ready to go to dinner. My ex was still getting dressed and we were waiting on her. She came out and asked “Do these pants my my ass look big?”
Now I know the proper response to that. All guys do. But instead my mouth (obviously more perturbed about having to wait than I was) blurted out, “No, your big ass makes your ass look big. Let’s go.”
I am still my friend’s hero for that one.
Same friend got married a few years later and then he and his wife took on a female roommate. Shall we say that eventually things carried on between the three of them and he was the meat in a sammich for about six months. Unfortunately, his wife left him to be with the roommate. They just up and left together one day. He was pretty sad about losing his wife (not to mention the three way action). So, being the good friend that I am I went over there not long after she left him. He’s not the greatest cook, so he ate a lot of tuna sandwiches (wait for it). When I got there, he had left the almost empty tuna can on the front step for the cat to finish off. I opened the front door and he was standing there looking pretty forlorn. I pointed to the can and said, “Dude, I don’t think it’s legal to bait them.”
First time I’d seen him crack a smile in a week.
Went to a movie theater one weekday afternoon. Its about 60% filled. I’m sitting there with a friend, watching the trailers of new movies, and one for “Legally Blonde” comes on. At the end of the trailer, in that blank, silent space between trailers, I say, in a completely conversational tone, “No, I don’t think so.”
I was rather shocked as to how funny it came out. I got a lot of out-n-out laughter from that.
Amazing. This is the first time I`ve entered a thread and felt truly led to read the whole thing before posting. Very amusing stuff.
Well, to contribute, the only one I can remember off the top of my head.
Back in high school…ack, more than a decade ago. My school had a yearbook group that had a habit of taking inventive candids. (We werent aware of this until after the fact) I was the quiet dude whod sit in the corner and say particularly nothing if I could help it. At some point in time during a science class, we were interrupted as the classroom door opened and a hand holding a camera slipped in, pressed the flash and moved out. We all sat in silence for a second before I shook my fist at the now closed door and muttered.
Damn those paparazzi!
Bit of dark humour as this was the September after a particular Royal death in Paris.
The classroom still broke into guilty hilarity, however.
A group of us were watching the news and speculating on what drugs killed Michael Jackson. Someone mentioned Demarol and OxyCotin.
Then the story about Billy Mays’s death came on. I laughed for two minutes before I could say “If the OxyCotin doesn’t kill you, I guess the OxyClean will.”
Roaring laughter ensued.
I think I was an older teen (16, 17) when this happened:
My mother and I got into her car and she turned the ignition. She’d apparently left the radio on last time she was there. It was barely loud enough to hear, even if you listened closely, but we both have excellent hearing.
Her: “Do you hear voices??”
(beat)
Me: (deadpan) “Sometimes…”
She lost it for several minutes; it’s still a family joke.