J is for Joke

On the first Wednesday of every month, my evening is reserved for dinner with the in-Laws. KJ & I, his brother & sister and their partners, and his step-father’s daughter and her husband head around to KJ’s Mum’s place for a home cooked meal. It’s like some big, corny TV-show family dinner with all of us squished in around a table that’s not quite big enough, passing dishes of food to each other over the top of one another.

We’ve been having these dinners for almost a year now, and a new tradition has started to form. Every month, we share the best jokes that we’ve heard since our last dinner. Usually not everyone has a joke, but you’re guaranteed to hear at least 3 or 4 mostly cringe-worthy jokes.

This new tradition started with KJ’s brother sharing a joke that he’d heard that he thought was so funny, he was still laughing while he told it to us. The joke itself was only mildly amusing, but it was his reaction that had us all laughing, and I’m pretty sure that’s the reason that we ended up doing the same thing every month.

This is something like how that first joke telling went:

BROTHER: A duck walks into a pharmacy and says to the pharmacist, "Gimme a chap stick thanks." *brother pauses here to laugh to himself some more* “No Problem” says the pharmacist. "Will that be cash or charge?" The duck replies, "Neither - Just put it on my bill."

ALL: *appropriately small amount of laughter*

BROTHER: *still wetting himself laughing* Hahaha – as if a duck would have an account at a pharmacy! Hahaha!

SISTER: (who I’m pretty sure missed out on getting a sense of humour altogether) That’s not why it’s funny – it’s because a duck’s beak is called a bill....

BROTHER: What!!? Aaaahahahahahaha *proceeds to laugh so hard that he chokes* A bill! That’s classic! *laughs for another few minutes* Oh right - and he's buying a chap stick! Hahahaha!

At this point we all joined in with his laughter, because the idea of him finding the joke funny without getting the bill reference was funnier than the joke itself.

Since then we’ve heard quite a lot of jokes, but none quite as funny as that first one.


Because I have a sieve-like memory when it comes to jokes (the clean ones, anyway), I haven’t told one at dinner yet at all. So I’ve got four weeks to come up with one that can rival my brother-in-law’s duck bill joke. Any suggestions would be welcome – but keep in mind, my father-in-law is a church minister. Also, they already think that I’m kind of crazy, so anything even a little bit dirty might get me into more trouble than it’s worth.