Off Price 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

This bike shop takes in old bicycles, repairs them, and sells them for an incredibly low price. I volunteer there pretty frequently mostly because I want to learn about bike maintenance.

Another volunteer and I were working on evaluating a bike to see if it was alright to sell. We were both trying to get the tires off the rims.

"Fuck, this tire is not coming off!"

"Yeah, it's being really tiresome."

He looked at me, shook his head, gave a slight groan, and started to laugh.

Oh boy do I have a joke for you kids! Its called the cheerio joke.

So there is this land called cheerio land and in cheerio land there are 7 classes of cheerio, 0-5 and the frosted cheerios. Now there is this level 0 cheerio. Hes homeless, living out on the street, probaly an alchoholic. But he falls in love with a frosted cheerio princess. So one day he sneaks into the royal gala and goes up to the princess and asks her "will you marry me?" Now she says "I like your style, youre a good looking guy, a bit scruffy but I like you. Tell you what I will marry you if you can become a frosted cheerio" So our guy goes back with a determination and gets a job and starts to pay off his debts. Now by having a job and his debts paid he becomes a level 1 cheerio. So he works, and he works, and he works, and he WORKS and he finally becomes a level 2 cheerio. Now he goes back to the princess and askes her again, "will you marry me?" she says "no honey you really do have to become a frosted cheerio first." So he goes back and he works and works, hes a fryboy at McGrubers or something, I dont care. So he works and he works and he gets promoted at the restraunt and is making more money. And he works and he works and he works and by having that income raise he finally becomes a level 3 cheerio. He feels sucessful for the first time in his life but he is starting to fall back on his old ways. One day he goes to the casino and he loses and he loses and he loses and he gambled all his money away and he gets fired to boot because gambling is against company policy. So he is back down to a level 1 cheerio. He gets a job on a production line at a nearby factory and determines himself not to fall back ever again. So he works and he works and he works and he works and he WORKS, level 2, level 3, and he is doing great again. He is promoted to Floor manager of the factory and he is doing great and becomes a level 4 cheerio. But then one day a rival company sabotages their operation by putting poison in their toothpaste or whatever the hell they were making. They have to pay out damages and PR and the like and they declare bankruptcy. He is knocked back down to level 2 for the lack in income. But he is hired almost straight away by a branch of a huge conglomerate because they recognized how hard of a worker he is. So he works, level 3, works, level 4, and he works and works and WORKS. So he is promoted t

Nan: I need to nip out later to grab some velcro

Me: I'd buy online if I were you. Velcro is a right rip off...

Nan: No, it's quite reasonably priced I think.

Smiled slightly and left it at that. Two weeks on and she still has no idea!

So I was standing in the grocery store comparing the prices of a couple packs of hummus when my roommate came up to me and suggest the off brand roasted red pepper kind to which I replied:

"Ya, I'm not really sure about that brand. They seem to be very hit and hummus for me."

He was not impressed.

My mate and I bought some N2O canisters to share between us, and he saved two for his girlfriend.

Messaged me, “I just had my last 2 whippets, looks like my girlfriend will miss out”.

I said, “Don’t worry, she can buy some off me at an inflated price”.

There once was a golfer named Jefferson Handy. He was a decent golfer, even better considering that he was unable to stand for more than a few minutes without intense pain. Due to his affliction, Jeffrey was always spotted a few strokes on the course. Anyway, Jeffrey was always known for a smile on his face and his cabby hat he wore for good luck. One day, while on the 7th green, a lady appeared from one of the water traps and told him she would grant him any wish, but at a price. He said sure, and asked to be able to stand again. She granted him his wish, but for payment, she took his hat. And that's the story of the lost Handy Cap.

> I want to apologize to everyone today. These terrible jokes have been coming to me all morning and I can't turn it off.

I walked into a Michaels store today and saw a sales sign that had fallen off its stand from one side.

The sales associate saw me looking at it and said, "If you were wondering, we are having a sideways sale!".

I couldn't resist. "Well, that explains why the prices had dropped by half! "

We knew what we did. It was marvelous.

So tonight around closing time I was helping a middle aged man pick out a pair of jeans. I rung him up and told him the price, he looked at me and said "isn't everything half off today" and gave me this serious look. I let out a small fake laugh and said "No". He then laughed and said "I guess that one went right over your head!". I looked at him and let out another fake laugh. I had to resist telling him that I got the joke, but that it just wasn't funny...like at all.