Apples and Lemon Cookies to Remedy a Tapeworm

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 02/12/2019
Primary Language: English

[The subject is KM. Her words are bolded, mine are not.]

ME: Do you want to tell me the joke first, or how you heard it first?

KM: Um… I think the lead up’s kind of… well, no. No, I’ll tell you the joke first.

ME: Okay.

KM: Okay, so, um, there’s this man who comes back from vacation from… somewhere. The place doesn’t really matter, you can change it from time to time when you tell it. But, uh, this man returns from vacation and his stomach is feeling kind of weird, and he’s not feeling too hot, so he goes to the doctor. The doctor, y’know, checks him up, and closes his door, and he’s like, “I’m sorry, sir, but you have a tapeworm.” He’s like, “Oh my gosh, like, what do I even do… do I take, like, antibacterial medication? What am I supposed to do?” He’s like, “Well, I mean you could wait for it to pass, but that could take who knows how long.” And this guy’s like, “I don’t wanna feel like this forever this is gonna suck, so do you have anything faster?” And he’s like, “Well, why don’t you… we’ll schedule an appointment for tomorrow. And I need you to bring an apple and a lemon cookie.” He’s like, “Okay, fine.”

So he schedules that, goes and buys the lemon cookie, buys the apple, is like, why am I even doing this, this is stupid. So he goes to the doctor, and the doctor’s like, “Okay. Bend over and pull down your pants.” He’s like, “I’m sorry, doctor, what?” And he’s like, “You just have to trust me.” And so, the doctor tells him to shove the apple up his butt, which the man does, and then he waits a few seconds, and then he’s like, “Okay, now you have to shove the lemon cookie up your butt.” He’s like, “Okay.” [Makes shoving noise and hand gestures] He’s like, “Oh, god, that was awful, is that it? Is that it?” And the doctor’s like, “I’m really sorry, but you’re going to have to do this every day for the next six days, you have to do it for a week. But then, on the seventh day, you come back to me and we’ll talk about it. But you’ll also have to bring a lemon cookie and an apple.” He’s like, “Jesus, okay.”

So then the second day he’s like uuugh, okay, that wasn’t so bad. Alright. By the fifth day, he’s like, I am sooo ready just… to die. This is the worst thing. So finally it’s the seventh day, and he’s scheduled his appointment, so he shows up to the doctor’s office with the apple and the lemon cookie like, “Doc, I don’t know if I can do it again.” He’s like, “No. Sir, this is gonna be the last time you’ll have to do this, this’ll be great. Like, it’s gonna be done after this.” He’s like, okay, but the man doesn’t really know what’s different because he still had to bring the apple and the lemon cookie, so finally, the doctor’s like, “Okay. Shove the apple up your butt.” So he does it, and he’s like, “Okay, then the lemon cookie?” And the doctor’s like, “No no no.” And he waits a few seconds, and he waits a few seconds, and nothing’s happening. Finally, the tapeworm SPURTS out of his butt and goes, “WHERE’S MY GODDAMN LEMON COOKIE?” And that’s the joke!

ME: So how did you come across this joke?

KM: This is like, one of my dad’s favorite jokes in his repertoire. He just, like, really enjoys this joke. But actually, he heard this joke, I think, because he had been listening to the radio back when we did that in our cars instead of phone music, or whatever, and so um, there had been, like, a radio contest. And like, you submit a punchline of a joke, and they would select the joke that you got to tell on the radio based on the punchline. And so, the punchline of that joke is, “and the tapeworm spurted out of his butt and said, ‘where’s my goddamn lemon cookie?’” And they were like, “what’s the rest of the joke? We have to hear that.” So that’s how my dad heard that joke.

Context:
KM is a white female college student who has lived in Southern California for her entire life. The first time I heard this joke, it happened because I referenced a different joke where a man had to shove fruit up his butt and she thought I was talking about this one. Instead, we discovered that we had two different jokes with the motif of fruit going up someone’s butt. I asked her to tell me the joke again so that I could record it.

Thoughts:
When KM had first told me this joke about a year ago, the man in it had just returned from vacation in South America. I think that this has to do with a common fear that many Americans have about illnesses one can get from visiting or drinking the water in South America. I think that this joke is clever, because from the elaborate setup, I expected it to end with the man discovering that the doctor was giving him the wrong advice and a play on words or something would explain the misunderstanding. Instead, the doctor’s advice works, which makes it even funnier. I also think that this joke would be easy to change with each telling of it, whether you were to change the place the man had returned from or the foods that he uses to expel the tapeworm.

The Green Lady

Nationality: American
Age: 27
Occupation: Manager at Auxiliary Services
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/19
Primary Language: English

The informant is marked IN.

IN: There’s this one spirit, called the green lady, who wanders around this botanical garden, that I think has water or like some kind of pond in it. She has green scales and jagged teeth, very Shape of Water, and her hair is made up of seaweed, and so the story goes that she had visited that garden with her children and one of them got lost and drowned in the lake. Because of that, she died with a broken heart and is apparently supposed to roam that area, in search of her child. And anyone visiting this garden is told not to leave their kids alone, because the spirit will like, take them as revenge or a consolation to her own child, you know.

Context: I asked the informant at work if he had any Hawaiian folklore tales he could remember.

Background: The informant is Hawaiian, with Japanese-American family. He heard this story around from locals in the area around this botanical garden.

Analysis: I think that this story is very similar to La Llorona in nature. It also functions as a story to tell children to get them to stay with you while visiting this area, as it will scare them to be alone with a fish-like spirit with jagged teeth.

Spinach and Tofu

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/19
Primary Language: English

The informant is marked IN. The collector is marked JJ.

IN: My mom told me I can’t eat spinach and tofu together otherwise I would die. Like all throughout my childhood, she never let me eat spinach and tofu.

JJ: Did she explain why you would die?

IN: No she had no idea why and I told her I don’t believe you and she was like it’s real I heard it on the Chinese television. And my mom believes a lot of things from chinese television and they have the weirdest like, health talks where it’s like, they bring up the weirdest shit and it’s usually not true.

Context: I met the informant at lunch and asked about any folk medicine used by her parents.

Background: The informant is a Chinese-American whose parents were raised in Vietnam. Her parents collect a lot of health remedies from Chinese television, often explained with little scientific backing – which is something that the informant has never agreed with but faced a lot growing up.

Analysis: I found this interesting because both foods are very healthy and to my knowledge used often in Chinese cooking. I can’t imagine reasons for avoiding these two foods, folkloric or scientific.

Hard Boiled Egg Black Eye

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/19
Primary Language: English

IN: When I was little, I fell up some stairs when I was trying to like, race up on hands an knees or something. I hit my face really hard, like thats why I have this scar on my eyebrow here. Anyways, I got this like really, really bad blackeye. And my grandma would take an egg, boil it to be like hard boiled, and then wrap in in a cloth and press it to my eye. And I remember her and my parents telling me it was sucking out all of the bad stuff. Like, the bad energy or something. Like she wouldn’t let me eat it after either, which I was pretty sad about most of the time. Like it was because of the bad energy that I couldn’t eat it.

I looked it up and it just says that like, it’s an actual thing people do, but like I guess it’s just the warmth that’s supposed to help you. But like I clearly remember my parents telling me it was sucking out the bad stuff, just bad evil energy and blackness from my eye.

Context: I met the informant at lunch and asked about any folk remedies her grandmother used when she was little.

Background: The informant is a second year student at USC who is Chinese-American, but her parents grew up in Vietnam. Her grandmother used a lot of folk medicine growing up, and this was a method used to treat her black eye.

Analysis: I found this really interesting because at the core it could be a more scientifically backed treatment if you approach it from the “heat-healing” perspective of increasing bloodflow in the area to alleviate the bruise. However, the informant was very adament that it was about the evil blackness for her grandmother, and that it was likely something she learned from her mother before her.

Palae, Fire Goddess

Nationality: American
Age: 27
Occupation: Manager for Auxiliary Services
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/24/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese

IN: Palae, our fire goddess, she like materializes herself into different forms and different ages stuff. And apparently, if you go, if your driving around in like a volcano area, and you see this women in white – but like you wont see her face – she’s hitchhiking you have to pick her up. And you’re not supposed to look at her in the rearview mirror adn she’s gonna ask you for a cigarette and you have to give her one. Or you have to get one to give to her.

JJ: Do you know anyone who that happened to?

IN: Because apparently um, when she’s, when she’s hitchhiking she’s in her beautiful form but if you look at her in the mirror she turns into her thousand year old self and shes all like “eeeeeehhhgg”

And her and her brother, the pig god, didn’t get along. so if you’re driving um towards the volcano and you pass this mile marker, your car will break down if you have pork products in your car. True. It has happened to me. I mean not like, right at the marker, but I mean like, four minutes in my car broke down. Because I had beef jerkey. And I was like, what the hell – I couldnt figure it out. and I was like, “Oh, so it’s true.”

JJ: Was it pork beef jerky? –

IN: Yeah

JJ: -I mean I guess I don’t know what beef jerky is made out of.

IN: But yeah pork products and you’ll break down. I’ve experienced it. Unless its just impeccable coincidence that my car broke down right at the marker.

Context: During a slow work shift, I asked the informant if he had any Folklore from Hawaii.

Background: The informant is Hawaiian. He heard this information about their gods throughout his childhood and adulthood in Hawaii. These gods are very present in current culture and life so it was always something prevalent to him.

Analysis: I was surprised at the relevancy of Hawaiian gods today. I had never heard about them so it was really cool to learn more about Hawaiian culture and beliefs. I’d imagine that Palae can serve as both a protector and a perpetrator. When she is treated decently, in this case someone lets her hitchhike, she is not angry and the volcanoes remain calm. If one erupts or a fire breaks out, it can be connected to someone not taking her along.