Subsequent Puns

Back in the before times, when sit-down restaurants existed, I used to order boneless cheese sticks and would just throw the word "boneless" in front of any appetizer with 100% corniness. The purpose of this isn't to make a good joke. It's not a good joke. The purpose is to make my dining companions catch some cringe splash damage and want to crawl into a hole and die out of embarrassment for my being horribly corny.

But there is a real, deeper purpose that I've discovered entirely by accident. People, especially young people, are so self-conscious and worried about saying or doing something embarrassing that it taints a lot of social gatherings. They go to a restaurant and are afraid to speak up even when their order is blatantly wrong. They'll tip well even when the food took an hour to arrive and the server has disappeared into the corn stalks behind a baseball field. It takes 2 hours of hanging out together before some friends finally stop nitpicking themselves, uncomfortable in their own bodies and brains, feeling perpetually judged, and begin to relax. These are the kinds of people who go to sleep every night replaying cringey moments from high school. Their last thought of the day is when the Burger King girl said, "Enjoy your meal!" and they said, "Thanks, you too."

It takes 2 hours and/or a lot of booze before they're comfortable enough to take conversational risks and truly reveal themselves. But if I come right out of the gate with a really dumb joke, then we can cut to the chase. There's less danger because someone in the group already shot themselves in the foot, right off the bat. They pulled a pin on the cringe grenade and then jumped on it.

You cringe at my dumb joke and then we're over the hump. Someone has already done something pretty stupid, so go ahead and order the hubcap of nachos and a massive chocolate shake because nobody is going to judge you poorly while they're all judging me.

In terms of price negotiations (haggling), there is a psychological concept called "anchoring". You throw out the first number and all subsequent numbers are compared to that number. This is the same idea. We've already set the humor standard pretty low at "boneless cheese sticks", so you can say the dumbest shit you want and, as long as it's not worse than my cheesy joke, it won't matter.

This is why, when you were a teenager and your dad took you and some friends out, your dad made corny jokes. He knew they were corny jokes. You and your friends un

What a waist of paper.

My youngest was watching Netflix, deciding on a few episodes of Captain Underpants. In one particular episode, the titled character is forced to share a room with a clown. My wife, watching this show, laughs about him having Coulrophobia (Fear of clowns), and repeatedly panicking in subsequent scenes. Finally near the episode, she asks ,"What did that clown ever do to him?"

My response: "Nothing. He's It's Cousin. Pound Foolish"

Wife stares at me. Blinks twice. Goes back to watching the TV that has more comedy than her idiot husband

He subsequently falafel.

Backstory: I had bought a set of nice Nespresso coffee cups for my parents for Christmas (original, I know). But these aren't your standard, chunky, ceramic Christmas mugs with snowflakes or Santas, but actually something for the type of coffee fanatics that spend their money on Clooney's kind of blend, what else?

So - having dessert; cake, coffee, the whole shabang.

Me, inspecting one of said cups: "I'm glad I actually found a set that doesn't stay in the cupboard all year like literally every other mug you've ever gotten from anyone."

Mom, eating cake: "Mm-hmm."

Me: "Like, these are actually really nice. I like the pattern around the base and how they're round and square at the same time."

Mom, between bites: "They're very nice."

Suddenly, Dad, eating his cake completely silently up until this point: "You should take a picture of them. Might make for a pretty cool mugshot."

Cue me barely managing to swallow my coffee, Mom chuckling into her cup and both our subsequent groans

He had a van adapted to his own specification, which subsequently was often seen overnight in the car parks of the world's best opera houses. After his death, the Japanese manufacturers used it as the flagship model of a new range. We've all heard of the 'Nissan Dormer'.

Due to a difference in a pinion, a flock of doves attempted to stage an immediate coo by just winging it. So it wasn't surprising that, after creating an add-hawk unit (which many in the bird community considered fowl play), the eagles' military was just too strong and talonted, and the fledgling, emutional uprising subsequently took a tern for the worst.

Just dad joked my gf hard.

Gf: Do you have five cents?

Aspiring dad: No. I'm Nickle-less.

PS: My name is Nicholas

The poor girl lost her lungs and eyes in the subsequent sigh and eye roll.

The episodes always start off with someone getting sick or injured, and during this particular intro, a mom was helping her daughter rock climb in a studio. The mom's hands became numb for whatever reason, and she subsequently let go of the rope, letting the kid fall.

My dad goes, "That's what happens when you're at the end of your rope."

I should preface this by saying this was on of the best dates I've ever been on, but the relationship also subsequently fell apart because of it.

Anyway, a few years ago, my girlfriend and I had been going out for a few months, and things were great. I met her through a mutual friend of mine at the hospital, weirdly enough. Our friend had gotten in a very bad accident and had to get a glass eye. He would always dab it with cotton to stop the bleeding at the beginning. Anyway, this is all relevant because my girlfriend (not girlfriend at the time) bonded over how disgusting our friends eye was. This got us to talking, and before you know it, we started going out. Things got pretty serious months and months down the line, and I was just laid off from my job. This meant that in general, we would go on cheaper dates. Nothing too drastic. Just like a movie and dinner instead of say the Opera and a fancy five star restaurant.

So, about a year and a half into the relationship, Joe, the mutual friend of ours, suggests a double date with us and his girlfriend. He knew the situation I was in and offered to pay for the whole thing. Great right? Well... no. I was actually planning on proposing to my girlfriend. Except Joe suggested the plans in front of my girlfriend too, so she accepted for both of us. I didn't want to propose to her on a double date, so I pulled her aside and told her to just skip the date and come over instead. Joe had bought us all tickets to a baseball game, and believe it or not, my girlfriend chose the baseball game instead of me. I stayed home alone as she went out with Joe and his girlfriend. Moral of the story is, if it hadn't been for Cotton Eyed Joe, I'd been married a long time ago.

For some time many of us have wondered, just who is Jack Schitt?

We find ourselves at a loss when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt!'

Well, thanks to my personal genealogy research efforts, you can now respond in an intellectual way.

Jack Schitt is the only son of Awe Schitt.

Awe Schitt was married to O. Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, and owner of Needeep N. Schitt, Inc. They had one son, Jack.

In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt. The deeply religious couple produced six children: Holie Schitt, Giva Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt.

Against her parents' objections, Deep Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout.

After being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe Schitt later married Ted Sherlock, and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was then known as Noe Schitt-Sherlock.

Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt, and they produced a son with a rather nervous disposition who was nick-named Chicken Schitt.

Two of the other six children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony.

The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens nuptials.

The Schitt-Happens children were Dawg, Byrd, and Horse.

Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world.

He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt.

Now when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt,' you can correct them.

Sincerely,

Crock O. Schitt

Sitting in a lecture I was playing with a piece of paper, crushing to a vague bowl shape, which I subsequently placed on my knee so that it looked kind of like a little hat. My friend leans over and picks it up, but then puts it back, saying, "It fits perfectly."

So I lean back and whisper in his ear,

"That's because it's a knee cap."

Dad: "How's the lamb? I hear it's not baaaad!"

Waiter laughs a little bit and agrees. Brother's palm hits his forehead in disbelief. Repeat at every subsequent restaurant visit at which lamb is offered.

We were discussing the experimentation of the early 1900s on rats, and how a certain scientist would grind up cow ovaries and inject them into mice and they would subsequently die.

The professor made a point to say that the mice reacted badly to the experimentation (Read: they died every time.)

I had to do it.

"So, I suppose you could say they had a cow?"