Informant:

Daniel is a first year analyst at a prominent Manhattan based investment bank. He grew up in Northern California from a predominantly irish background

Piece:

The first party I ever went to was kinda a bummer. I was invited the day of and was stressed cause I had nothing to wear. So I went to the mall and picked out a shirt and waited in the checkout line. But then I was hungry so I went to wetzel’s Pretzels and waited in the pretzel line. And then later that night I showed up and waited in the party line to get in. And then when I finally got I went to get a drink but there was no punchline.

Collector’s thought’s:

This joke takes a while to develop and is paradoxical in nature. The first person aspect of it makes it so that the audience can not tell that it is a joke and not real until the repetition of waiting in lines kicks in. Part of what makes this joke funny is that the punchline of the joke is literally that “there was no punchline”, a paradox that is equally infuriating and hilarious.