Category Archives: Humor

Watergate Salad

Text/Context

EM – Watergate salad is a tradition in my family that has been a controversy for years and years. Every Easter, my Aunt brings a dish that mainly consists of marshmallows and is dyed green. The name of this concoction is Watergate salad and every year my aunt puts it on the dinner table arguing that it is meant as a side dish with dinner. Everyone else argues that it’s a dessert. The same arguments are made every year and the issue has never been resolved to this day.
Interviewer – What are some of the arguments your family makes for and against Watergate salad being a salad instead of a dessert?
EM – My aunt argues that it’s green, so its a salad. Everyone else says it’s sweet, made of marshmallows and jello, so it’s a dessert.
Interviewer – Does anyone besides your aunt eat it as a side at dinner, or do people wait until dessert, or do people not even eat it and it’s kinda just a prop?
EM – A couple of my cousins sometimes take a minuscule scoop at dinner. Most other wait til dessert.
Interviewer – Is it only an Easter meal?
EM – Ya, only Easter.
Interviewer – Do you know any other families who have a similar recipe at their Easter meal?
EM – I’ve never heard of anyone else having it.
Interviewer – Is it always present at Easter, and is it mainly a yearly joke that everyone still enjoys, or is this serious debate?
EM – It’s always at Easter when my aunt comes. And it’s both a joke and a debate that still gets laughs.
Interviewer – Does anyone else know the recipe or just your aunt?
EM – As far as I know, my aunt is the only one.

Analysis

This family’s traditional dish is only for Easter, so it was not collected in a natural context. However, the informant and I were talking about favorite foods, which veered into dishes we eat only at certain times or events.
Watergate salad is named for its controversial status as a “salad” or a “dessert.” This folk group consists only of the informant’s immediate and extended family, and close friends who attend their Easter dinner.
The dish is not a regular recipe meant only to be eaten. It is also a joke. The family engages in playful debate about the salad and may refuse to eat it during or after dinner, but it gets eaten nonetheless. The dish brings the family closer together, because it is an inside joke, and always gets laughs no matter the stance.

Midnight Requisition

Text/Context

HS (informant): So it’s, unofficially lending something. Lending without renting, but with no formal requisition process. The idea is, the boss has gone home, any administrative types have gone home and the people left there just let someone borrow something.
Interviewer: So its like if you’re working at a costume shop and you have like, a friend or someone who wants to use a piece, but you can’t like rent it, or don’t want to rent it, so your friend working in the costume shop might just like, wait until everyone else has left.
HS: Ya. People who, people who are working late at night just let someone they know, borrow something, off the record.
I: Do you know how long that saying has been around?
HS: I would’ve heard it by the early 80s. It may have, I don’t know if it exists in other fields. It might.
I: How long have you been working in costume shops?
HS: Since, Oh, I can’t tell you that! ’73? 1973!
I: So there was like, seven-ish years that you hadn’t heard it.
HS: No.
I: Did you hear the term when you were working late night?
HS: Oh, it was like when I was a grad student. Dealing with ISPs (Independent Student Productions). When something wasn’t going to matter to just let it out, or lend it out. I don’t know how limited it is as a term. One of the other grad students was the one who I remember using it the most. Somehow I don’t think it would apply to tailors, because I think it has to do with if you have access to stock.

Analysis

The informant and I were speaking generally about sayings around a costume shop, so this term did not occur in a fully natural context. In addition, this particular costume shop does not operate late into the night, so the term does not apply in this particular environment. I recorded our conversation and later transcribed it.
The term midnight requisition is an official-sounding label to discuss under-the-table activities behind the backs of workplace superiors. Costume shops generally have hundreds of items of clothing in storage for use and reuse in theater performances, ranging in time period, culture, and levels of decay (some pieces are decades old and barely holding together). Generally a midnight requisition would be a request by a costume shop worker’s friend to borrow a costume, which they may not want or be able to spend money on. The informant mentioned such requests may be for 1920s flapper dress, a pristine top hat, or something more comical for a halloween party.
The term recognizes the improperness of the lending, but makes it sound more official and therefore less objectionable.

Batman Leaves Church Early

Context: The respondent first saw this joke posted on someone’s social profile.

H.K. : What do you call Batman who leaves church early?
P.Z. : What do you call Batman… um, bats in the belfry. I literally don’t know.
H.K. : Mm ‘kay. Christian Bale.

Thoughts: As cringe-worthy as this joke may be, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had been stumped by this riddle, as it had modern pop culture references that I’m unused to hearing in riddles. Like many other jokes or riddles though, it used the traditional play on words format.

Indian marriage jokes

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/26
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Background: The informant (A) is the 20 year old daughter of two Indian immigrants. She was born and raised in the US. 

Joke 1:

Today if Ravan took your wife away would you still consider him evil?

A: So basically it’s like….since Ravan took Ram’s wife, would it be such a bad thing if he took mine? Since there’s always, like, “beef” between Indian husbands and wives it’s like he’s saying like “oh I wouldn’t even care if mine was kidnapped by Ravan and I wouldn’t even call him evil anymore”.

Joke 2:

The doctor (to the lady): any history of insanity in the family?

Lady: yes, my husband thinks he’s the boss of the house!

A: It’s like…commonly accepted that husbands always go into the command of their wives because they’re scared of their wives in Indian households. It’s a cultural thing, whatever the wife says goes and you just have to agree and say yes to everything. It’s a joke but it’s low-key true, like they’re all scared of their wives.

Context: This was told to me over a recorded FaceTime call. The characters Ravan and Ram refer to the legend of Diwali, where Ravan kidnapped Ram’s wife Sita. Ravan is a widely known villain character in Indian culture. “Beef” is a word used by modern youths to describe disagreements or rather unfriendly relations. According to the informant, husbands and wives disagreeing often, or the husband being submissive, are topics that many members of the culture group will often joke about.

Mexican Joke: Why did God put Mexico next to the USA?

TEXT: “Sabias due cuando dios hizo el mundo, decidió hacer un país, y dijo así, ‘ a este país le voy a dar millones de kilómetros de playas con el mar mas bonito y caliente, le voy a dar el 90 por ciento de la plata del mundo, le voy a dar petróleo, oro, el mejor clima, y la belleza natural mas increíble que hay’. Entonces un asistente le pregunta , ‘pero dios, porque le das tanto a ese país Mexico?’ “porque le voy a poner a los Mexicanos al lado de los Gringos.’”

INFORMANT DESCRIPTION: Male, 58, Mexican

CONTEXT: This joke is at the expense of Americans but in the context that Mexico lost half of its territory to the US. The joke is to say that God compensated for all the beauty and riches in Mexico by making its neighbor the States. He learned it from his parents, he said it is traditional that parents would tell this joke to their kids when talking about American domination of the world. It is also a joke out of spite, considering Mexico has an economy that lags to the States’ to this day. To him it means that we are subservient to American influence and better joke about it. He likes it because both it reminds him of his childhood and is also historical and witty. Light hearted fun to realpolitiks.

TRANSLATION: “Did you know that when God made the world, he decided to make a country, and he said, ‘to this country I am going to give millions of kilometers of beaches with the most beautiful and warm sea, y am going to give it 90 percent of the silver in the world, I am going to give it petroleum, gold, the best weather, the most incredible natural beauty there is’ and so an assistant asks him, ‘but God, why are you giving so much to this country Mexico?’ ‘Because I am going to put the Mexicans next to the Americans’.”

THOUGHTS: I think this joke is funny to hear as a Mexican-American. I think while it does poke fun it also sheds reverse light on the insecurities and resent of the Mexicans. It is also quite light hearted and seems benign.