Karen's Joke File #3: The Prison Jokes

Well, yesterday's joke seems to have landed with a thud.  Nobody said they liked it, and hardly anyone said anything to the contrary, either.

I think you'll like today's entry better.  There are actually two jokes here, based on the same premise. 

Joke #3A and 3B: The Prison Jokes.

A 22-year-old kid is sent to a maximum security prison for larceny.  Benefiting from a cliché often found in prison stories, he ends up with an older, veteran cellmate who takes a liking to him and helps him get acclimated to prison life.

The first night in the cell block, the kid hears something strange. Other prisoners are calling out numbers in the darkness.

"Sixteen!"

All the prisoners laugh, except for the new kid.

"Twenty-five!"

More laughter.

And so on.  The kid asks his cellmate to explain what everyone's laughing at.

"Well, at night, we've got nothing better to do than to tell jokes."

"But they're not jokes.  They're just numbers."

"That's all you know.  Thing is, we've all been here so long that we've heard all each other's jokes so often that we've memorized them. So rather than tell the whole joke again, we've numbered 'em all.  Now we just remind each other of the joke by calling out the number."

"Huh.  Can I try it?"

"Knock yourself out, kid."

Ending A:  So the kid calls out, "Eleven!"

Silence.

He tries again.  "Twenty-two!"

There's just one half-hearted chuckle, and it dies quickly.

The kid turns to his cellmate and says, "I don't get it. What's going wrong?"

The cellmate shakes his head.  "Some people can tell a joke, and some can't."

Ending B:  So the kid calls out, "Sixty-seven!"

The entire cell block erupts in almost hysterical laughter.

The kid turns to his cellmate and says, "I don't get it. What's so funny?"

Tears streaming down his cheeks, the cellmate says, "We've never heard that one before!"

I like Ending B better.

Tomorrow: The Con and the Corn Flakes.

Karen