Piece

So a moth goes into a podiatrist’s office and the podiatrist is like “What is the problem, Moth?” and the moth goes “What is the problem? My life’s a mess doc. My son hates me, my marriage is falling apart, and I’m starting to get old fat and bald. I look in the mirror and I see a shell of a man I used to be. I don’t know. Things are not good.”

So the podiatrist is like “ Man that sounds rough. But like why did you come here, why didn’t you go to a psychiatrist’s office?”

And the moth’s like “Cause the lights were on.”

Background

This is a joke narrated by a close friend from my school, N. N has a kind of dry clever humour that you can’t help but laugh at. He told me that this joke was from his uncle’s collection of many similar jokes. 

Context

N sent this joke to me in the form of a whatsapp voice note when I messaged him about my assignment. 

Thoughts

This joke is funny because at first it sets up the idea that the moth is like a human by allowing the audience to anthropomorphize him by describing his life experience. Then, when the audience thinks that he is human, the joke suddenly reminds them that the moth is actually just a moth and a slave to the nature of the moth. It turns the audience’s expectations back to the original which makes anyone chuckle.