The Punchline Game

[Buster's Uncle]

Something I tried at the Troll Pit last year, with a little success:

The idea is to give the punchline of a joke widespread enough that you expect people to already know it.  "Yes, I know Pedro; I had lunch with him yesterday!' and such like that.  Everybody who gets it smiles and time is saved - somebody doesn't get it, you tell the joke and somebody hears a classic for the first time.  -This probably worked better in person with a small number of people when I invented the game in college, but worth a try here.

When I was about 10, there was a dirty one going around with the punchline "And the boy called out from under the bed 'For a Niiickel!'"  About 15  years later, a much younger cousin told me the same joke with the end of the punchline changed to "I'll do for a quarter." - now THAT'S inflation in action.



Next.

[Buster's Uncle]

And someone (Speer) didn't know Lunch With Pedro, so:

Okay, I don't feel like writing up Pedro right this minute, but I will do it soon.  I'm going to try to tell a very gross joke in classy language, and I challenge others to do same.  Ralph Mouth was once saying that punchline at Arnold's as they faded in on a scene, I think indicating a very old joke.

It resembled Ming in that respect. :nod:

Now, In My Arrogant Opinion, the following is a bit sublime, adding value to a Very Gross Old Joke in taking a modern webs perspective and doing something very different in dialogue.

So Juan and Pedro were not friends.  They did not like each other and were bitter enemies (this is a RL equivalent of two d00ds mutually butthurt from flamewar, and beefing).

So one midday, Juan was going down the road outside town when he was suddenly confronted by an armed Pedro from ambush.

(The analog custom is to relate the dialog in the joke in thick Mexican accents, something known IRL as "racism", but here, also known as Slowwhand posting in an immigration thread.  I will not be following this custom, with all due apologies to the good Mr. Hand, but evoking an entirely different time and place.)

"Salutations, Juan," said Pedro, clearly in excellent spirits, "Would you be so kind as to disembark from your noble burro, that I might not shoot you for non-compliance?"

Juan reluctantly slid down to stand in the road.

"Prithee sirrah," Pedro declared, "would you trouble yourself to perambulate over to this bush from which I sprang my most successful ambuscade, taking care that you not approach quite so closely that my gun-hand reacts impetuously?"

Juan walked over to the bush.

"Juan, I fear for your health in the noonday heat of this clime," exclaimed a triumphant-seeming Pedro, "Please remove a garment, your pants, that your suffering might be ameliorated."

Juan wasn't about to do that until Pedro fired a shot into the ground near his feet.  He slowly complied.

The impressively wide grin that Pedro had begun the confrontation (think trolling IRL) with grew wider.  "Squat, my dear fellow, squat low that the shade of the bush will cover you."

The bare-bottomed Juan didn't like where this was going, but chose the better part of valor and squatted.

"Your posture does not do your corpulent form justice, my dear boy," the not-slim-himself Pedro said, clearly growing even happier than before, "a man so well-fed must indeed need do that which inevitably follows upon eating such a surfeit; and I pray you do so now before me, that I need not come to the aid of your release with this pistol in my hand."

Taking a moment to decipher Pedro's imperative, Juan actually felt relief of another sort, feeling this an indication that he was to be humiliated, but not murdered or worse.  He did indeed do his business by the bush as ordered.

"Now, my good Juan," said Pedro, beginning to quiver with jocularity, "a man of such appetites must needs feed them; take and eat of your labors.  I most strenuously insist."

It took another shot into the ground to bring Juan into compliance with that directive, but comply he did.

After the most disgusting experience of his life, Juan looked up to see Pedro doubled over, helpless with laughter (pwnage).  With a toss of fouled sand into Pedro's face and a brief struggle, Juan found himself in possession of both the gun and the upper hand (a situation known in both meatspace and online alike as the tables turned).

"Pedro, oh Pedro," the now-exultant and oddly non-nauseous Juan said, "I see that your exertions have overheated you.  If you were to remove your pants, I might not feel forced to provide ventilation by other means; to wit, this gun..."

...And so the second half of the incident played out as mirror of the first, ending with Juan riding away having bettered equity by the profit of a pistol, two bullets and a change of pants.


The next morning, Juan was stopped in town by a stranger.

"I'm looking for Pedro," the stranger said, "do you happen to know him?"

Juan smiled.  "Yes, I know Pedro.  I had lunch with him yesterday."

...

[Scene.  BU bows.]

[Buster's Uncle]

^That was funny!  This is when you laugh!^