After taking leave for my father’s death I came back to work to a bunch of somber faces and people giving their condolences. I was feeling fine, ready to get back to work, and wanted to lighten the mood. So when someone asked if the funeral went okay I told everyone some brief details, wake/funeral/dinner/etc. and ended with “and yesterday we spent the day driving around scattering his remains in various places”… quiet pause… “which would have been a LOT easier if we had him cremated.”
Some friends and I were on our way to dinner after work one day. It was still early, sun still high in the sky.
One friend sees some prostitutes on a corner, and says, “they’re sure out early, before dinnertime even.”
I replied, “they must be the whore d’oeuvres.”
I come from an extremely conservative Mormon family. Like all good Mormon families of that period, it’s huge. I have 30 cousins just on my mother side and God knows how many second and third cousins.
We had an extended family reunion one summer. My mother was working that day so I had the duty of giving the family report.
So I explained that my father had died that year, my mother was working, my older brother was doing whatever, etc., etc.
I finished up by saying, “and my girlfriend is expecting . . . “ I thought my poor grandmother was going to have a heart attack on the spot. All my super religious aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins and all looked completely shocked.
And then after a pregnant pause, I competed the sentence “. . . me to take her out to dinner tonight.”
I’m notorious for one-liners. one of my favorites: I was playing Halo with my wife and we were having a difficult time shooting down the flyers, called “Pelicans.” After coming close to rage-quitting a few times, I told her to get some sugar from the kitchen and put it in her vag.
She gave me the “WTF are you talking about?” look, so I grinned and told her, “Haven’t you ever heard the old saying?”
A poon full of sugar makes the pelican go down
The bruises I was sporting for the next week were totally worth it.
In high school bio, the teacher was beginning the chapter on genetics, and she started to say “Gregor Mendel was the father of–”
I called out “Nine children!” (Fortunately, she had a sense of humor).
Back when I was in college (yes, children, dinosaurs still roamed the Earth) my decrepit little apartment had a telephone, all wired up, but it didn’t work. I called the phone company from a pay phone, and was given a time and date when a repair person would come to my decrepit place and make the phone functional.
At said time, I was waiting expectantly.
The phone rang!
I answered.
The person said, “This is the phone company. Your telephone works!”
I said, “Obviously!”
~VOW
I am missing some context here.
My last name is somewhat unusual. I once met a guy who thought he vaguely remembered having heard of a famous ancestor of mine. I replied, “No, I’m the first of a distinguished line.”
I was presiding over a mock trial once and a student lawyer asked if he and his colleagues were free to move about the courtroom, and I said, “Yes, but please, no twerking.”
Once I was playing a materials expert in another mock trial, testifying about the dangers of a particular chemical process. The lawyer very sarcastically asked, “I suppose you think water is dangerous, too, sir?”
I shot back, “When you’re 30 feet deep in it without scuba gear, yes, sir.”
My friend Hayes was running for office in my small Ohio River town. Another candidate tried to persuade him to get out of the race and finally blurted out, “But Hayes, you can’t win - you’re black!”
Hayes looked at the back of his hands as if he were startled and said, “My God, you’re right!”
He went on to win the race.
Close enough?: Good Thing Science Neil Tyson TShirt
Er… I don’t get it.
I was taking an English class called Words, Words, Words in high school and was pretty cocky about my vocabulary. The teacher said good-naturedly, “Oh, you think you’re so smart, eh?” and picked up a dictionary, opened it at random and asked, “What is a ‘hoplite’?”
I said, “You mean an armored infantryman in ancient Greece?”
He literally threw the book at me.
Some time in the 1980s, I got a phone call from somebody wanting to ask me questions on television viewing and radio listening habits. Being bored, I went with it. After some questions, they asked what radio station I listened to the most. I told them the name of the station, which was excellent, having recently changed formats. The follow-up question went like this:
Questioner: If, for whatever reason, that station were to go off the air, what would you most likely turn to?
Me: Drugs.
After a few seconds of silence, I had to tell them that was a joke.
A boss once mentioned something, then said, “That’s an axiom. Do you know what an axiom is?” A beat later, I said, “Of course I do! My car has them. A front axiom and a rear axiom!”
A friend once walked into his work’s breakroom. A group of guys were sitting at a table. My friend greeted them by saying, “Men…Tim.”
This happened many years ago and I wish I could claim it but it was a good friend of mine visiting. There was also an Israeli visiting and he started talking about the fact that the Kurdish Jews in Israel had their own synagogue, but that it was, for some reason, well hidden and hard to see. My friend, not missing a beat, said, “But the Kurds find their way.” I near fell off my chair laughing.
I think it’s referencing the fact that both the Boston Red Sox (baseball) and the New England Patriots (football) did pret-ty darn good this year.
Older Brother: “You can’t float a turd uphill.”
Me: “You could use a series of locks.”
Heh. I’ve heard that as “Gentlemen… Tim.”
Ah, got it. Thanks.
A friend of mine at work is a very dark-skinned black man. Now, before anybody gets offended, he and I are constantly quipping at one another, and no topic is off limits.
Recently, he was scheduled to work at a post that he rarely does. He said to me, “When’s the last time you saw me in that department?”
I answered, “Well, it depends on the lighting.”
He cracked up.
When my son was in high school he happened to walk in the door just as the TV newscast was announcing the story of a minister who was arrested for stealing painkillers from a cancer patient when he visited the patient at home. Without breaking stride my son said, “Hope you enjoy HELL” and walked out of the room.
He was a minister who also taught middle grades science.
I didn’t really get why he thought a cow’s udder was obscene, but figured he’d consider a bull costume with anatomically correct features worse. He did chuckle and agreed it would be worse.
Years later, we (the faculty) were forced to watch a series of videos by Harry Wong, an educational pundit. The tapes went missing, so the assistant principal announced that someone had stolen her Harry Wong. I said “stole her hairy what??” and he said “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that!” while stifling laughter.
Years ago me and a fellow mechanic co-worker were working on a task, and of course the this particular in-over-his-head supervisor was worried about it being completed on time. We told him earlier we have this under control, it’ll make it, and to stop worrying and just let us work in peace.
Finally his anxiety must have gotten the best of him and he comes up asks us “Are you guys getting close?” I feigned a puzzled, somewhat taken aback look, and said, while shrugging: Well…Yeah…I guess we get along alright."
That reminds me of an incident from when I was in the Navy. Some crew members were standing around shooting the shit, among them, our Captain and a Lt j.g. The skipper asked the j.g. “So what do you plan to do once you’re out of the Navy?”
The instant response: “ Cartwheels.”
Skipper didn’t like that one quite as much as the rest of us did.
I walked into a small conviencestore and a young woman came up to me and said, “Can I help you find something?” I looked around this tiny store, with two product racks maybe eight feet long each, then I looked at her and said, “I don’t know. What do you have that might be, uh, difficult for me to find?” Never seen that many shades of color on a face before.