My Humps 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

dad: "sweetheart, do you know Spanish singer Julio Iglesias? He said he wanted to have another concert soon, you know! "

mom: "My deaaar, if I say 'Julio', it is pronounced as 'Hulio'. Don't embarrassed me like that ... "

dad: "Ooo ... is that so, ...?"

mom: "Yes, dear. When will the concert be available? "

dad: "It was Hanuari, but it was postponed. Either its Hune or Huly. Lets Watch it! After that, I plan to hump together with him at his room, what do you think?

So my family and I are all gathering around the TV watching the Notre Dame & North Carolina basketball game last night, when out of nowhere my dog starts dry humping the air.

It's absolutely hilarious when he does it, and it all never fails to make everyone laugh hysterically. Take in mind that my dog is neutered so he's super horny but, obviously doesn't really no what he's doing since his baby makers were chopped off. Anyways, my brothers trying to get him to come to him and he's just sitting there looking at him with this his devious little dog face.

Angrily, my brother says,

"He's probably so disobedient because you guys had to go and cut off his balls."

Everyone nodded their heads agreeably, except my dad who mumbles,

"Yeah Matt, that must explain why he never comes."

My dad saw a headline in the paper that was something like "aggressive camel tramples two people" He looks at me and goes "I guess it was mad it wasn't hump day"

Me: Huh, that farm has camels.

Dad: Yeah that's fascinating, you'd think all the water in their humps would freeze over in this weather.

Then after my dad laughed at his own joke for a minute...

Me: Do camels even produce any kind of products you can sell?

Dad: Yeah, cigarettes!