Monthly Archives: April 2012

Finally…the Blonde Joke to End All Blonde Jokes

Performance Date: April 2007

A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, “Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t figure out how to get it started.” Her boyfriend asks, “What is it supposed to be when it’s finished?” The blonde says, “According to the picture on the box, it’s a tiger.”

Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table.

He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, “First of all, no matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger.”

He takes her hand and says, “Second, I want you to relax. Let’s have a nice cup of tea, and then …” He sighed……..
“Let’s put all the Frosted Flakes back in the box…….”

I heard this joke from my roommate, who in turn received it from his girlfriend in Texas via the Internet.  While I would hesitate to call it the “blond joke to end all blond jokes,” it does exhibit the paradoxical structure that is the backbone of any “good joke.”  Incongruity is created by the girl’s inability to solve her “killer jigsaw puzzle,” and the punchline delivers appropriateness: the puzzle is unsolvable because it is nothing but sugary cereal.  Clearly the implication is that blond females are intellectually under par.
So why is blond hair the butt of so many jokes?  When I asked this of my informant, he offered the possible explanation that the jokes descend from the stereotypical blond girl as portrayed on television.  I would certainly agree that films and TV shows often portray the role of attractive female characters on a superficial level.  Perhaps this depiction came to be associated with blonds in particular during a past trend in fashion that valued blondness.  Thus, blond jokes may represent a societal response toward the entertainment industry’s preoccupation with appearance.  In essence, Hollywood gives society their version of an ideal female, and society rebels by telling jokes that belittle her wits or point out her shallowness.
It is perhaps for this reason that blond jokes seem more “politically correct” than racial and gender jokes.  As they are more of a reaction to a stereotype than to a biological group, they are less likely to be offensive.  I have even heard blonds tell blond jokes (neither my informant nor his girlfriend are blond, however).  Fortunately, the format of such jokes also allows for manipulation of the looney character’s traits, so the jokes can be adapted to various audiences.

Guanti – Fried Snack

Performance Date: April 2007

The following recipe is for a traditional holiday treat from my father’s sister.  She tells me, “Your great grandmother made these by the bushels at Christmas and Easter.”  It seems every culture worldwide has devised a unique way to fry dough and satisfy the sweet tooth: funnel cakes and doughnuts in America, beignets in France, churros and sopapillas in Spain and Mexico.  This particular cookie seems familiar to me, but I did not realize it was from Italy.  In my father’s family, food – especially pasta and sweets (unfortunately for someone like me who avoids sugar) – has always been a central unifying aspect of culture.  Indeed food is one of the central aspects of ethnicity and heritage, and my informant says this is especially true in Italy.

 

Guanti (Wands)

 

Beat 3 eggs with 2T of sugar.  Add:

 

1t lemon juice

1T evaporated milk

6T vegetable oil

½t salt

 

Add 2 c plus 2T of flour.  Knead on floured board.  Roll paper thin.  Cut into very thin strips and shape each strip into a loop.  Fry in vegetable oil 5 seconds.  They’ll be golden in color.  Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with sugar.

The Tooth Fairy

Nationality: American (British Descent)
Age: 56
Occupation: CFO
Residence: Del Mar, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2012
Primary Language: English

“I don’t know if anyone said anything to you about the Tooth Fairy yet. Basically putting a, uh, quarter or a dollar under the pillow as a kid at night when they lost their tooth. And the tooth fairy would come at night and leave money for the tooth. You’d have to put your tooth under there and the Tooth Fairy would come and leave ya money.”

 

“Do you remember if it was your mom or your dad told you to do that?”

 

“My mom an dad both. That was, goes back as far as time as far as I know.”

 

“Was there something special that you put your tooth in or did you just put it straight under your pillow?”

 

“No you just stuck the tooth straight under the pillow and looked under in the morning, wake up and find a quarter under your pillow is what it was. And then I think with inflation it turned into a dollar.”

Childhood is filled with imaginary creatures and mythical figures, and the Tooth Fairy is no exception. Losing baby teeth is one of our first rights of passage, not to mention a young child’s introduction to earning money. As well as in the case of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, finding out that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist comes as another early life shock.

Accountant Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Oceanside, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“We don’t bury our mistakes, we only erase them.”

 

I found this joke interesting because I don’t find it particularly funny, but, according to the informant, accountants enjoy the joke a lot. The joke refers to another profession: doctors. According to the informant, the joke means that doctors bury their mistakes whereas accountants only erase them. The joke seems to operate on a couple of levels. On the one hand, the joke implies a rather negative view of the field of medicine. It seems to say, well, accountants might mess up, but at least we don’t kill people when we mess up. On the other hand, the joke also indicates that what accountants do is not as serious as what doctors do. Accounting can be a very stressful job, especially during tax season, and the joke serves as a reminder that their job is not a matter of life and death. It is almost a way of comforting fellow accountants by reminding each other that if they make a mistake they can simply erase it and start over.

Dirty Accountant Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Oceanside, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“Accountants do it with double-entry.”

 

This dirty joke is a double-entendre. It implies a sexual situation, but really it refers to the fact that bookkeeping is a double entry system. You enter information in a total column and a transactional column (hence, two entries.) The informant is an accountant and I believe that one of the major reasons the informant likes the joke and repeats it is that his profession is generally viewed as boring and accountants tend to be stereotyped as suit-wearing, brief-case carrying, straight-laced professionals who spend their days working with numbers and doing taxes. The dirtiness of the joke is unexpected and telling the joke seems to be a way for the informant to prove that he is more than a drone.