United Front Puns

So I'm at the promotion ceremony of my girlfriend's Dad today. He's being promoted to Assistant Surgeon General so it's a pretty big deal. He's giving his speech and he's acknowledging all the people who are in his life and have come today to celebrate with him. He says this with Surgeon General Murthy sitting behind him, "there are also two of my daughters boyfriends here with me, Mr other daughter's boyfriend, and Mr. Jack The_Baboons_Ass. Let me tell you something about the Mr. The_Baboons_Ass, if you don't know him, you don't know Jack." The Surgeon General looks on not knowing what too think while I'm cracking up. The Surgeon General then comes up to me after the ceremony and introduces himself, saying "Nice to meet you Jack, I guess I do know Jack now" and walks away

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

When he gets to the place where he’s supposed to pick up his rifle the man tells him that he just ran out. “If you need to shoot just say ‘BANGITY BANG BANGITY BANG!'” he says. Bummed out and little confused, the guy moves on to the next area where he’s supposed to pick up the bayonet. But the next man is out too. “If you need to stab someone just go, ‘STICKITY STICK STICKITY STICK!'” he says. Dejected and wondering what the heck he signed up for, the guy jumps into the next truck on its way to the front where there’s a battle raging on.

Side by side with the rest of the soldiers in his unit, the guy advances on the enemy position. As soon as he sees the enemy, he shouts, “BANGITY BANG BANGITY BANG!!” Amazingly, the enemy soldier drops to the ground. Encouraged by his success he charges the next two enemy soldiers and goes, “STICKITY STICK STICKITY STICK!” They both immediately collapse in front of him. This is incredible, he thinks, I’ve become unstoppable.

So when he sees his next foe way off in the distance, he shouts, “BANGITY BANG BANGITY BANG!” at him. He waits for him to fall, but nothing happens. The guy charges his unfazed adversary next and goes “STICKITY STICK STICKITY STICK!” Again he thinks the man will fall and again nothing happens. “Why wont you drop?” the guy says. The enemy soldier knocks him down and responds, “TANKITY TANK TANKITY TANK!”