Second Unit 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

My unit had a drill weekend and we were in the woods with only open toilets (no walls or stalls, just three toilet seats next to either.) After the second day one of the officers asked, "Is there a private shiter around here?" I responded with, "I haven't seen him but I'll look for him."

Me: Hey, what are the units for power?

Friend: Watt.

Me: I said, what are the units for power?

Friend: Watt.

Me: No, I said what are the units for power?

Friend: JOULES PER SECOND

It's his second day in recovery and he's finally awake and starting to walk around a bit. Today he was moved to a step-down unit from ICU. A new doctor we've never seen before came over to check up on my dad.

Doctor: "Hi Mr. _______, how are you feeling? Dr. Esposito asked me to keep an eye on you."

Dad: "Oh really? Which one?"

Poor doctor was so taken aback... He didn't even see it coming.

At work today, a friend of mine came in with two dried Carolina Reaper peppers. If you aren't familiar with these bad boys, they are hotter than Lucifer's testicles themselves. 2.2 Million Scoville units. Two times hotter than the ghost pepper.

To put it into perspective, a jalapeno is about 5000 scoville units. This one was 2.2 fucking million.

Anyway. I walked past my buddy's desk and he asked if I wanted some of the pepper.

OF COURSE I DID!!!

He gave me 1/4 of one of these little peppers and he even dared me to chew it for 15 seconds before swallowing. Which I did. To say that my mouth felt like the burning hemorrhoids of satans budding asshole would be a vast understatement.

One of the girls who sat near my buddy looks at me -- pacing back and forth around the room, sweating, crying -- and she says:

>"Cane-Dewey, are you alright!?"

I could barely breathe let alone speak. But through all the pain and angush, I still managed to mutter out:

>"No, I'm half left.