Self Conscious Puns

There was so much history between us.

Because it didn't have any curves.

Because it was floored.

...all the pages fell out...

It was time for the prom at Klondike High School and Tim's friends were desperately trying to convince him to go. He considered it, but was very self-conscious of the fact that he had had an accident as a young child that caused him to lose his eye, and the best his family could afford was to buy him a wooden eye. After several days of goading, Tim finally decides to go.

Sally was in a similar situation. Her friends desperately wanted her to go prom with them, but she was recently in a car accident and lost her right leg. She had a prosthetic, but it was very uncomfortable, so she had a hard time walking. Reluctantly, she agreed to go.

It was the night of the prom and both Tim and Sally were getting all gussied up with their friends. They both make it to the prom, but when they arrive, they are both too nervous to dance. Tim's friends notice Sally sitting on the wall and say to him, "Look over there! There's a cute girl who's all alone and needs a partner to dance with. Why don't you go over there and ask her to dance?" After some further convincing, Tim sheepishly begins to walk over to Sally to ask her. As he approaches her, he getes nervous, and awkwardly stands in front of her for a few seconds before saying, "Wuh...wuh...would you like to dance with me?"

Excitedly, Sally exclaims, "Would I? Would I?"

Tim responds angrily, "PEG LEG! PEG LEG!"

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

There was a man, who in high-school, had a wooden eye. He was quite self conscious about it, so when it came time for the school dance, he didn't have the nerve to ask a girl to dance. He would go up to a girl and she would turn away instantly. He was very discouraged, until he saw across the room a girl, alone with a peg leg. He thought "perfect! she might want to dance with me!" and walked over. When he asked her to dance, she looked up grinning and said "Would i? Would I?!" offended, he looked back and said. "Peg leg! peg leg!"

Because it was really self conscious

Because he was self conscious and just wanted to feel a little lighter.

There was too much history between us.

I was too self conscious to say hello.

I mean there was all this history between us!