Category Archives: Humor

The traveler and the Monk Narrative Joke

Text: 

“There was a man who was driving down a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere when his car broke down. He gets out, tries to fix it, can’t, and decides to walk down the road to see if he can find any help. He eventually comes across a monastery. He walks up, knocks on the door, and asks the monk at the door “hey my car broke down just down the road, could I spend the night here until I get it fixed?” The monk happily agreed, not only welcoming him in, but offering to fix his car and get the traveler on his way. The man is grateful to the monk for his generosity, and enters the monastery for the night. The man meets the rest of the monks, has a great meal, and they show him to his room. As they were walking down the hall to his room, he passed a locked door with a very strange sound coming from it. He asks the monk “What is that sound?” The monk replies “I cannot tell you, for you are not a monk”. The man accepts the monk’s response, goes into his room, and tries to get a good night’s rest. However, he stays awake all night, unable to sleep because of the mysterious sound. It gets to a point where the guy just can’t take it anymore. So he gets up, wakes up the monk, and says: “Please can you please tell me what that sound is driving me crazy” The monk gives him the same response: “I cannot tell you, for you are not a monk”. The man is frustrated, but tries to go back to sleep. Still, he is kept awake by the sound, and is dying even more now to figure out what it is. In the morning, the man goes up to the monk, and says: “I need to figure out what the noise is, how do I become a monk?” The monk says “you must first travel around the world and count every blade of grass. Only once you have counted every blade of grass, can you become a monk. The man sets out, travels the world counting blades of grass. He covers every plain, every mountain, every hill, until he finally counts the last blade of grass. He travels back to the monastery, and tells the monk: “I have counted all 1 quadrillion, 985 trillion, 743 billion, 892 million, 41 thousand and 6 blades of grass, can I become a monk now? The monk says that is correct, but to become a monk you must first travel the world, and count every grain of sand on the earth. Only once you have done that can you become a monk” The man is so eager to figure out what the sound is, that he agrees. He sets out, goes to every beach, every dessert, every sand dune, and counts every grain of sand on the earth. He returns to the monk, and says: I have counted all “58 quintillion, 8 quadrillion, 247 trillion, 133 billion, 21 million, 607 thousand, 522 grains of sand, can I become a monk now? The monk says, that is correct, you can finally become a monk. The man is overjoyed, and he immediately follows the monk up to the room where he heard the sound, and figures out what was making it. 

“What was the sound?”

“I can’t tell you, because you’re not a monk”

Context: My informant is my younger brother who heard this story from one of his friends in highschool. His friend told him this story on a road trip as a way to pass the time. My brother says the idea of the story is to drag it out as long as the other person will take, usually adding quests the traveler must continue to complete, and stretching out the set up and conclusion. Then once the traveler finds the sound, you wait for the listener to ask what it was, then deliver the punchline. 

Analysis: I found this joke to be especially interesting because the funny part isn’t necessarily the punch line, but how the storyteller has essentially tricked the listener into sitting through a long story that is building up to a climax that is never delivered. Furthermore, the longer the story is continued, the more and more the climax of learning the sound is built up, to the point where no possible source for the sound could explain the traveler wanting so desperately to find it. But by using the punchline as a sort of anti-climax, it both preserves the sense of curiosity in the listener, and instills the same frustration that the traveler felt throughout the story.

Mr. Brown

There’s a man named Mr. Brown. He has a wife, but other than that he’s a pretty insecure guy. He suspects his wife has been cheating on him while he’s out at work, though doesn’t really have any definitive evidence to prove it. But he’s certain that his suspicions are right. One day he comes home to his apartment to find his wife dressed up a little fancier than she normally would be for house work. She claims it’s for him, but she’s never done anything like that for him — this could be his chance to catch the culprit! So he runs over to the window, looks out, and sees a man walking away from the apartment entrance zipping up his pants. We’ll call this guy Mr. Red. Anyway, Mr. Brown boils over with rage, grabs the nearest heavy object (the fridge), and heaves it out the window, on top of Mr. Red. Now, you have to keep in mind that Mr. Brown has some heart issues, and all this anger and physical exertion really aren’t that healthy for him. He shortly expires. When he comes to, he’s at the pearly gates. In front of him stands Mr. Red, as well as St. Peter. St. Peter asks how Mr. Red died. “Well, I was going to help an old lady cross the street, noticed my fly was undone, and then bam! Got hit by a fridge.” St. Peter nods, then proceeds to Mr. Brown, who tells his story. Unfaithful wife, see the culprit, try to apprehend him, expire in the process, etc. At this point Mr. Red, Mr. Brown, and St. Peter realize they are joined by a third man, who we’ll call Mr. White. St. Peter asks Mr. White why he’s here, to which he replies “I was just hanging out in this fridge, until all of a sudden I got tossed out a window!”

My informant heard this at a comedy show in Ireland, hosted by a “traditional storyteller type of fella.” They interpreted it as heteronormative and the female character is not given much agency, but they think that their brain mostly sees the red flags of a “I hate my wife” joke even though it is not the case.

This narrative joke takes the listener in a loop, creating unexpected twists and a humorous ending that completes the circle. It starts with the expectation that Mr. Brown’s wife is cheating on him, goes on and shows that Mr. Brown was wrong about who he thought she was cheating on him with, but then ends with the conclusion that she really was cheating on him. This joke could have a tie to fate, or how a man is usually right, but is likely meant to be taken lightly and for its entertainment value only.

Indian Wedding Ritual: Sisters Demanding Money

Context: The informant, AV, is an 18 year old student with parents who immigrated from India, specifically Gujarat. She’s been to multiple weddings in India, and observed this at her first cousin’s wedding. She remembers being somewhere around 5th grade-aged, and so she recounted what she remembered, with a general explanation. She doesn’t know if this is an Indian ritual or just a Gujarati one.

Text: AV said “When our cousin got married, he didn’t have any sisters, so me and my sister stood in front of his horse and didn’t let him through until he promised us money and silver chains. We were really young so I don’t remember it as well, but I remember it happening” and explained that essentially, when either your brother or a close cousin who has no sisters is getting married, you’re supposed to stop them from going into the wedding. They usually enter on a horse or in a car and they’re meant to walk into the venue, but before they can, you physically get in front of the horse/car, stop him, and tell him he’s not allowed to pass. He then is supposed to bargain, offering you money or gold or silver to let him pass. When it’s enough, you let him pass — usually now, it’s ritualized in the way that you push back like three times and on the second or third time you let them through.

Analysis: This ritual feels somewhat similar to the pranks traditionally played on couples during weddings, as a way of disrupting that liminality, except it’s specific to the groom and his side of the family. It’s a ritual for the groom to also leave the family; as the groom goes to the bride, the sisters will no longer be the most important women in his life, and they cede that position in a joking ritual that requires the groom to bribe them, proving how much he wants the bride. It’s a wedding ritual that rearranges the structure of the families that will be combining, and visually reorders the groom’s priorities. For the sisters, it’s also a form of letting their brother go, knowing that their relationships will fundamentally change, but disrupting that transition with this joking ritual.

Scout Camp Announcements Tradition

“Every morning and every night, we do these announcements at the flag ceremony for the day. Where there’s a person who’s like the officer of the day, who’s in charge of running things for the day, stands at the front and calls out any of the staff members who have announcements for the day, and they like jump forward and do their little bits, where they say jokes and do their little announcements. After the last dinner before everyone heads out of camp, we head out to the flag area again,and we line up and usually the program director will pretend they’re like the fake officer of the day and do a full flag ceremony, even when there are no scouts, and everyone is allowed to give a parting message. And so we’ll make references and say silly stuff. Like last year, there was one moment where this younger staff member yelled very loudly at me, ‘[Teller’s name] you have diarrhea on your hands!’ and so I made an announcement where I said I had diarrhea on my hands. 

Context: This tradition was gathered from a conversation I had with the teller, where I asked if there were any significant traditions or festivals he remembered from his life. As previously mentioned, this tradition is from a summer scout camp that the teller worked at. The camp operated on a weekly basis across a month or so, where a new batch of scouts were brought in each week. The teller told me of three traditions, of which this is the third. 

Analysis: Performed by and for the staff of this scout camp, this particular tradition is a transformation of a standardized daily routine, done during a specific liminal time (the end of the weekly program). In contrast to the more structured nature of the daily announcements, this tradition takes on a more humorous note, deriving hilarity from the contrast between the absurd statements and the supposed formality of the usual traditions. Happening at the end of the weekly program, before a new cycle of scouts come through, this tradition seems to reinforce and celebrate the connections built amongst the staff and between the staff and the scouts during the weekly period, almost making sure that some part of the prior experience stays with them as they face another change in the coming week. 

Creative Insults

“Take a long walk down a short pier.”

“Go piss up a rope.”

This person grew up hearing his grandmother constantly say these insults to those who inconvenience her. From this, his whole family began to say these to others as well, and even he still says them to this day. Each time he says one, he immediately thinks of his grandmother and her Irish Catholic background. It also emphasizes that she has a strong connection to her Boston background because of the blunt style this language is often associated with.

While these insults can seem harsh, the relationship that this person, and his family, has to them show a strong familial connection and importance in his life. Like most folklore, these insults were passed down essentially as familial tradition as they had an obvious influence in shaping the communication style (insulting) that the family members gradually took up and will most likely continue to use, passing them on to others in their lives. Furthermore, folklore is often seen as having oral traditions, as much of it is told throughout history by word of mouth, being passed down generations and from community to community, just as these insults have done. Additionally, the insults the grandmother uses represents her cultural identity, likely coming from her upbringing and environment living in Boston and being an Irish Catholic. Through these verbal insults, she is able to share this identity and transmit these elements of herself to others, exhibiting common folklore themes of generational sharing, word of mouth, and cultural adaptations. Finally, when I was told about this piece of folklore in this person’s life, I too had heard these insults as I also grew up in Boston, and it brought back many memories that I have with my own friends and family surrounding these phrases!