Pine Nuts: The four original jokes
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There are only four jokes, and the rest are variations of those first four. We credit Eve with the first joke ever told. It was, “Made you look!” at Adam’s expense.
Pointing her finger into the garden, Eve exclaimed, “Nude volleyball!”
Of course Adam took a long look, stretching his neck in every direction, to wit Eve shouted with glee, “Haha, made you look!”
(Eve then had to mansplain the joke to Adam as he asked, “What’s volleyball?”)
The second joke ever told and recorded took place in the Apolo Bar in ancient Greece when a horse wandered into the bar, and the barkeep asked that horse, “Why the long face?”
Everybody in the place broke into raucous laughter, including the horse…
The third joke ever told was about religion, and as I don’t have the original, I shall share a recent iteration…
Sister Mary, who worked for a home health agency, was out making rounds when she ran out of gas. As good fortune would have it, a gas station was only a block away. So in her habit, she walked to the station to borrow a gas can and buy some gasoline.
The attendant told her that the only gas can he owned had been lent out, and as Sister Mary was on her way to see a patient, she decided not to wait and walked back to her car. Looking for something she could fill with gas she spotted a bedpan. So she carried the bedpan to the station, filled it with gasoline, and carried the full bedpan back to her car.
As she was pouring gas from the bedpan into her tank, two men were watching out the window from across the street at Peg’s Ham & Eggs. One turned to the other and said solemnly, “If it starts, I’m converting to Catholicism.”
The fourth original joke was about irony, and we have this iteration…
There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job it was to process all the mail that had ineligible addresses. One afternoon, a letter came addressed in shaky handwriting to God with no address. He thought he should open it, and the letter read:
Dear God,
I am a 93-year-old widow, living on Social Security. Yesterday somebody stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next check. I have invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food. You are my only hope…
Sincerely,
Hazel
The postal worker was touched, and he shared that letter with all the other workers. Each dug into his or her wallet and they collected $96, which he put into an envelope and mailed to Hazel.
A few days later another letter came from Hazel to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:
Dear God,
Because of your love and grace, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends, and I told them about your wonderful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it must have been those bastards at the Post Office.
Sincerely yours, Hazel
For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.” Want to hear McAvoy tell it? Go here for the spoken word version of this column.
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