Corn Meal 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

Jonathan Davis brought the corn and Fred Durst made biscuits but they were a little too limp. Marshal Mathers wasn't prepared, so all he could provide was some M&M's. Neil Peart had to leave early because he was in a rush, and the meal was so bad that it disturbed David Draimen.

"If I take the last in the box of Corn Flakes and finish off the rest of the Corn Pops in one meal, does that make me a cereal killer?"

I just subscribed to dadjokes and I absolutely love it. Probably because i have the same sense of humor. Anyway here is what happened last night as I was home visiting for dinner.

My mom has spent all day preparing a glorious meal of shredded barbeque chicken, spanish rice, and corn bread (the kind of home cooked meal you just don't get in college). One of my moms absolute favorite things is cornbread and honey. so while we were sitting at the table waiting for her to get her plate she set my dad up for his moment of glory. "Is my honey on the table already?" I saw the look in his eyes he knew he had her! "No sweety I'm in my chair. I haven't had enough to drink to get on the table yet!" I laughed high fived my dad while my mom and my sister rolled their eyes.

My family was at the table, eating a nice meal. My mom had prepared some corn, and my brother didn't find it to be satisfactory.

"These kernels are too small!" he said.

My dad replied with "Maybe they're just lieutenants."