Day #2: Favorite Jokes

I think the prompt list I found was written by a British person, because the actual prompt is "Tell us your favourite joke."  Here's the thing:  I'd be horrible at that "desert island" game because I can't ever choose just one.  It's a pathological condition that I need a lot of variety.  There are two jokes that pop up when I hear this, though.

A duck walks into a bar.  He says to the bartender.  "Got any bread?"
The bartender says "No."
The duck says "Got any bread?"
The bartender says "I told you, NO."
The duck says "Got any bread?"
The bartender says "What is your problem, mate?  WE DON'T HAVE BREAD.
The duck says "Got any bread?"
The bartender says "FOR THE LAST TIME:  NO!!!!  AND IF YOU ASK ME AGAIN, I'M GOING TO NAIL YOUR BEAK TO THIS BAR!"
The duck says "Got any nails?"
The bartender says "NOOOOOOO!  WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING!  STOP ASKING ME!"
The ducks says "Got any bread?"

The first time I heard this, David was forwarding it over email from someone he worked with, more than 10 years ago.  For some reason, it made me laugh a lot.  I think situations where one person is apoplectic while another can't be ruffled is inherently funny.  Also, I have to admit that I had no idea where it was going when we got to the nails part.

But the real reason this joke is significant is we've been teaching it to Jarrah since she was like two years old, and by now she can recite it almost perfectly, with all the correct emphases, but she will still say quite frankly, "Some day I hope to understand why this is funny."  She's very much a literalist when it comes to humor.  I mean, she can reassure her friends, when they ask me, "Will we be getting candy at the movies?" and I respond "I brought some carrots and radishes for you to gnaw on instead" that "My mommy is joking.  She makes jokes like that" but she doesn't understand the nuances of jokes unless they are very short.  Her teacher actually spoke to me about this at her fall conference this year, though what I'm supposed to do about it, I can't imagine.

The other joke that springs to mind is the one that actually functions as half the title of my dissertation, which when I'm feeling concise, I describe as being "about Jewish humor."  The title is "Don't Mind Me; I'll Just Sit Here in the Dark:"  Illuminating the Role of Women in Catskills Performative Culture and the part before the colon is the punchline of the classic "How many Jewish mothers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"  This is a good joke, and always gets a laugh if people haven't heard it before, but of course it has long ceased to be a joke to me and become more of a social construct that I then needed 300 pages to explain.

I've been trying to figure out why the theme is "KIDS but a lot of the prompts this week are about jokes.  I mean, if the theme was "KID," maybe.