Rear Light Puns

Back in the late 80's, my dad had a joke he loved to tell everyone he met. It went something like this:

I was driving down the road and ended up behind this ambulance with its rear door open. I tried honking and flashing my lights to get their attention about it, but they didn't seem to notice. As they turned the corner away from us, a small cooler fell out. I pulled over to rescue the cooler, and when I opened it, I found a human toe, on ice.

At this point, the victim of the joke is supposed to ask what he did with the toe. He responds with "I called the Tow Truck!" and hearty laughter.

Being the 1980's, e-mail wasn't prevalent, and calling long distance could get expensive, so he communicated with his out of state family primarily through mailed letters. He wrote this joke (sans punchline) in a letter to his mom. Not knowing it was a joke, she told the story to her friends and family. My aunt heard this story, and told it to her classes (she's a teacher) and one of her students actually got in a fight with his mom who said that could never happen.

A month or two later, we were getting together for a holiday and the toe story came up in conversation. My dad replied that he called the tow truck, and his laughter was met with horrified stares. By this time, nearly everyone in the small town was enthralled with this amazing story that my grandma had told about her son who lived in the city. She was imagining all of the people she had to contact to tell the real story to. Many took it in stride, but others were quite annoyed. Especially my aunt, who had to apologize to every one of her classes at school.

TLDR: A dad joke with no punch line doesn't belong in a letter.

So I'm driving and at the traffic light, I accidentally rear-end someone. I sit there astonished, and then out from the car I hit comes a small guy. He says in a stern voice "I am not happy!" To which I reply: "Well, which one are you then?"

"Philogelos" or "The Laughter Lover" is a collection of 265 ancient Roman jokes, written in the 4th century AD. Some of them feel... very appropriate for this sub:

• A boy caught sight of a deep well on his country-estate, and asked if the water was any good. The farmhands assured him that it was good, and that his own parents used to drink from that well. The boy expressed his amazement: "How long were their necks, if they could drink from something so deep!"

• When a boy was told by someone, "Your beard is now coming in," he went to the rear-entrance and waited for it.

• A boy checked in on the parents of a dead classmate. The father was wailing: "O son, you have left me a cripple!" The mother was crying: "O son, you have taken the light from my eyes!" Later, the boy suggested to his friends: "Well, if he were guilty of all that, he probably deserved to die!"

• A boy came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed', the intellectual replied: "When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"

• A boy had been at a wedding-reception. As he was leaving, he said: "What a wonderful ceremony! I pray that your next marriages are as enjoyable as this one."

• A man met his friend in the street, who said: "Congratulations! I hear that you've got a new baby boy!" The man replied: "Indeed, but I'm still trying to find the father!"

• A man saw a eunuch talking with a woman and asked him if she was his wife. When he replied that eunuchs can't have wives, the man asked: "So is she your daughter?"

• A man was being heckled by a friend: "I had your wife, without paying a dime!" The man replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?'

• An incompetent schoolteacher was asked who the mother of Priam was. Not knowing the answer, he said: "Well, I suppose it's polite to call her Ma'am."

• A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "Ah, then you must have no clue who your real father is!"

• A misogynist paid his last respects at the tomb of his dead wife. When someone asked him, "Who has gone to rest?," he replied: "Me, at last!"

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#1: "My dad is a proctologist, you wouldn't believe what he's had to remove from people's rear ends. For example, did you know that to get a light bulb out, you have to encase it in plastic first so it doesn't shatter?"

#2: "Why would anyone put a light bulb in their ass in the first place?"

#3: "He must have thought it was a bright idea."