I co-raise a guide dog puppy, and even though my roommate and I split time with him, people are always surprised when they see me without him. I now get to use a great line every time.
Them: WHAT?! Where’s [dog’s name]?
Me looking somber: Oh, we had him put to sleep.
Always shocks for a minute. I usually follow it up saying he peed on the carpet again or something, and enough was enough.
Occasionally, because we work within ten minutes of one another, I go to meet auntie em for lunch. Her workplace requires all visitors to sign in and inform the receptionist which employee is being, well… visited.
Once, last year, when the regular receptionist was gone and a substitute in her place, I walked in to see auntie em waiting for me. But before she could say anything to the substitute, I grabbed auntie em, kissed her long and hard and then, after pulling away, pointed at her and said to the receptionist, “I’m here to see my sister.”
applause
One I’ve always tried to use is stolen from The Firesign Theater: When someone asks if I have something for a cough, I always say “Here’s a quarter.” I keep hoping for someone to say, “That’s not much” or something similar, but it never happens. The next line, of course, is “It’s not much of a cough.”
I have had one glorious success, though, and I pass it on to you. If you ever injure an eye and go to the hospital, be sure to tell the Opthalmologist who eventually comes to check you out, “You better sit down Doc. You’re getting blurry!” Or maybe not–in my case the guy kept giggling on and off through the whole exam.
I really feel sorry for the friend of mine who was approached by the driver of a van which was loaded with musical instruments, who asked him “Hey, how do I get to the Royal Festival Hall?”. Polite by reflex, my friend answered, “Oh, it’s just over there” points and so missed a lifetime opportunity to say:
“Practise, practise, practise!”.
:smack:
One that I get to use fairly often is when somebody says something like “I’m going to the breast cancer rally” or “I was at a sexual harassment seminar” is to innocently ask them: “Pro or con?”
I was a passenger in a hire car, and when my Dad (who was driving) pulled into a garage to get some petrol, he asked “is the petrol (filler) cap on your side?”.
To which I replied, “well, it’s always been very supportive”.
And one that nearly got me in trouble with the law…
A friend’s car, in which I was a passenger, has its window broken and the stereo stolen.
We went to the local police station to report it, and the desk officer asked “is your car alarmed, sir”
To which I replied, “no, just a bit shaken and concerned”.
We once had to run a recuitment campaign for a “Domestic Violence Coordinator”… there were are number of jokes that suggested themselves for a job title like that!
One I’ve always wanted to set up is wearing a tie with the word “gravy” embroidered on it…
OK, you gotta know a little bit of MidEast/Israeli politics/politicians to get it, but here goes… Also, not mine, and definitely black humor.
Anyway, back in 1995, a few days after Yitzhak Rabin was murdered, in a bank one of the tellers called out to the people waiting in line “who’s next?” … and the inevitable response was “Peres!”
Scene; I was a new technician at a car dealership. I had been there maybe a week.
The service manager comes up with a stack of letters, and tells me I have to read my copy and sign that I had read it. I tell him fine, let me finish with this bolt and give me a chance to wipe my hands off.
While I am working I ask what is the letter about.
he replies that it is about sexual harrassment.
With a straight face I ask:
So are we for it or against it? I can support either position, I just need to know our policy.
My boss looked stunned for about 10 seconds till he figured out my sense of humor.
I’ve got this one down pat and use it quite a bit:
stranger: “Do you smoke?”
me: “Only when I’m on fire.”
My Dad always got me and my sister with a Firesign line when we were little kids. Everytime we said “Leave me alone!” He’d say “How much do you want? $5? $10?”
I used to work in a liquor store a long time ago. A Little Old Lady came in one rainy day.
“Young man…could you please call me a Yellow Cab?”
(slight pause, as I dramatically flung my arm out, and pointed my index finger right between her eyes)
“YOU’RE a Yellow Cab!”
(modest round of applause from other customers)
I lived in Japan for a while and took martial arts lessons while I was there. My class had a few other westerners in it, but it was mostly Japanese people. When I started classes, I didn’t have the right gear, so the sensei helped me order my uniform, the dogi (pronounced with a long o and an ee sound for the i).
Now, I’m rather tall and Japanese tend as a group to run a bit short, so even though we ordered the XXL, when it arrived it was clear it didn’t fit. The body was okay, but the arms and legs were way too short. My western friends asked me what I was going to do, and in a moment of inspiration, I said:
“I guess I’m going to have to get a long little dogi.”
They didn’t laugh; I’ve been waiting years for someone to appreciate my genius.
Yeah, that’s what she said.
I’ve been waiting to have some male flasher show me his junk so I could quizzically lift an eyebrow and say, “Hmmmm. That looks just like a penis, only smaller.”
I used to be a staff member at a large university, and often went to the cafeteria to buy my lunch. Back in the neolithic days before debit cards became widely accepted, payment options were pretty much cash or credit card. One of the perks to being a full time employee was that you could write a check at the cafeteria.
So one day as I set my tray down next to the cash register, I brought forth my checkbook and began the process of inscribing a payment note. The student worker at the register (who had asked me this question half a million times already) simply said “staff?” To which I replied, “No, I’m strep.”
She didn’t get it. Neither did the three or four kids in the line behind me.
:rolleyes:
One year the science-fiction convention I was working at eschewed the usual “Staff” ribbons for ones that read “Strep”. My immediate circle of friends found this highly amusing, in a graveyard-humor way, because my wife had been fighting a nasty series of staph infections for the past several months. One of the running jokes all weekend was that she was the reason for the change.
I also once got a very dirty look from a friend who was trying out for the lead in “Man of La Mancha” when I interrupted him immediately after he delivered the line “I shall impersonate a man!” with “I don’t think you’re that good an actor.”
One time I was ordering some sandwich meat from the deli. I asked for 200 grams of summer sausage. The girl behind the counter asked, “how would you like that sliced?” To which I replied, “in circles about this big”. She rolled her eyes. I thought it was pretty funny.