The Severed Toe

Nationality: USA
Age: 60
Occupation: CEO
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

Okay, so we go up to Rancho Santa Fe all the time during the summer, and it’s this little town with winding roads that stretch for miles. And the houses there are huge and spread out, so when you’re driving it’s rare to run into another car. So one day we’re driving down to the Del Mar Racetrack on one of these winding roads, and this ambulance SWERVES in front of us. So we hit the breaks— it’s like it didn’t even see us, or didn’t care. And we wait a few minutes before moving again, and there’s only one road down, so we’re stuck behind it, but we keep our distance because it’s driving out of control—making sharp turns, speeding well past the limit. And it rounds one particular turn and practically skids, and the back doors fly open and this little objects falls out of the back and onto the street. And it’s like the driver doesn’t even notice, because he just speeds away. And we stop. And he’s gone. And there’s this… this, like, thing, sitting in the middle of the street. And we’re sitting there watching it. And it starts to steam, like… smoke starts to rise off of it. So of course we’re like, “What the hell do we do? What the hell is that?” And my wife tells me to go check it out. And I’m like, “I’m not gonna go check that out!” But then she gives me this look, so I get out and slowly approach it. So I’m walking and walking, slowly inching towards this steaming object. And as I get closer I see it’s this little square, like white. A little box? And I get even closer and see its a block of dry ice. And that’s what’s steaming. And strapped to it is this SEVERED TOE. Yeah… a TOE. Just sitting there on the ice, all bloody. And I’m like, about to throw up. And I hear the car door open behind me and my wife approaches, and she gasps when she sees that, and asks if I see what she sees. An actual steaming, severed toe. So we just stand there staring at it for a while, saying nothing. And finally I pull out my phone, and my wife looks at me and asks what I’m doing. I say, “I’m calling the toe truck.

M’s friend told him this story at the racetrack one day. His friend said it with such a straight face, and made it so compelling, that it took M a few minutes to realize the punch line—and that the whole thing was a joke. He tells this story all the time, because it captivates his listeners, and almost always gets a laugh.

This is a very clever joke, especially if you can deadpan the whole thing. If you tell it like its the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you, the reveal that it was all a made-up joke is all the more jarring in the end.

Squirrel in the Middle of the Street

Nationality: USA
Age: 60
Occupation: CEO
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

If you’re driving down the street and you almost hit a squirrel running in the middle of the road, it’s not considered a squirrel anymore. What is it, you ask? A quirrel. Why? Because you just scared the “s” out of it.

This is something M’s dad said to him once, and he’s been repeating it ever since. He likes it because it’s funny and he’s never heard it told before, and no one he’s ever told it to has heard it either. It’s important to him because his dad made it up.

This joke is so lame it’s funny. You laugh because it’s kind of stupid, but as far as personally-made up jokes go, it’s pretty good. It’s not funny enough to be memorable, but funny enough to earn a little laugh.

Bird Poop is Good Luck

Nationality: USA
Age: 60
Occupation: CEO
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

I was at the racetrack and one of our horses was just about to enter this big race. Its name was “El Cielo.” That means “the sky” in Spanish. Anyway… I’d been there for a few races, wasn’t doing too well. Was feeling kind of, you know, beaten down. And I got up to go to the bathroom before this race—I was nervous, it was a big deal. And as I’m leaving our box and walking up to the bathroom, I feel this… SPLAT on my head. I was wearing a hat, but I could feel something drop on me. I didn’t even wanna touch it, I knew what it was immediately. It wasn’t raining…what else drops out from the sky? So I go to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and…. of course. Bird shit. All matted in my hat. My first thought was, “Ah, crap.” Right? Isn’t that what you’d think? Like, this is disgusting, I smell bad, no ones gonna wanna go near me. But the race was about to go off and I still had to pee so I just did my business and went back to the box. And I sat down and everyone looked at me, like, “Jeez, what is this guy doing?” But the horse won. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we were at low odds, we beat out a massive favorite. And then I won the next race I bet. And I ended up having one of the biggest track days of my life. And it was because of the bird poop, I know it.

This story happened to M, and he likes it because it’s funny and no one ever believes that the bird poop was the reason for the good luck. But he researched it online a little while later, and birds pooping on you is considered good luck across many different cultures.

I’ve heard about bird poop being good luck before, but this story is the most legitimate evidence I’ve heard of that actually being true. Essentially, what this is saying is that bird poop is the ultimate blessing in disguise.

 

Mirror Breaking

Nationality: USA
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/22/18
Primary Language: English

I was always terrified of breaking a mirror while growing up. Like, seven years of bad luck, right? Or… something like that. I think everyone has probably heard that one, like a black cat—just bad luck. But I think that might have been my biggest fear growing up. So irrational and weird to think about now.

M’s mom told her this superstition when she was very young, and it stuck with her her whole life. It was something she used to think about in her everyday life, until she realized it was irrational to constantly be afraid of breaking a mirror. But she always considered it better to be careful around mirrors rather than risk seven whole years of misfortune as a result.

I’ve heard about the dangers of breaking a mirror; I’m sure it’s one of the most commonly known superstitions. M just said she knew of it through her mom—I wonder if it’s a cultural thing to her family and that’s why she was so overly concerned with it.

Fairy Civilizations

Nationality: USA
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 4/22/19
Primary Language: English

My sisters used to make fairy civilizations… little cities, houses. They’d use little Barbie furniture items, give them chairs to sit on, swings to play on, baskets of these little berries from this bush in our backyard to eat. They could never see the fairies— they were shy, my sisters would say—but they would leave the little fairy homes out overnight and come out the next morning and things would have shifted or disappeared, and they were convinced fairies had come to visit while they were sleeping. I was always convinced it was the wind or opossums or my parents pulling a ‘Santa Claus’ to make my sisters happy. But my sisters were very serious about these endeavors. And they would get so upset if my mom tried to clear out their backyard fairy creations before, like, a party or something. The fairies would get angry, my sisters said, if their houses were destroyed. They’d like, throw tantrums because they were scared of what the fairies would do. It was bad luck or something. So my mom would just leave them in our backyard, in the plants. They were there for like, years, until we remodeled the backyard and they had to go. The gardeners would work over them and stuff up until then. My sisters were probably fourteen when the fairy houses were removed. The next day, one of my sisters broke her arm. That same day, my other sister’s boyfriend broke up with her. They had a bad week. It was probably just coincidental, but they swear it was the fairies.

J knows this story because it happened to his sister and the fairy civilizations were a big part of his childhood. His sisters were obsessed with mythical creatures when they were young, particularly fairies, and he was often dragged into helping them build their little houses for them. He never believed in the stories, but his sisters still bring it up to this day.

.I’ve always heard that fairies can be ruthless, like when people get caught in a fairy dancing circle and then when they come to, eight years have passed. So, I’m sure a fairy would be upset if someone built a house for them and then destroyed it. When I was little I used to make fairy houses with my friends at school, but we would always take them down after recess and bring our Barbie furniture home with us. I don’t remember having much bad luck as a result—or maybe I did and all the bad things that ever happened to me are a result of that!