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.

Regan Joke

[original joke by Reagan, or at least was at one point told by Reagan]

“A man in Soviet Russia would like to buy a car. There’s only one model, as per usual Soviet policy, but that’s alright, a car’s a car. He heads down to the dealership to buy the car and is told by the dealer that there’s a five year wait list to get the car. The man says no bother, just put me down on the list, I’ll come to pick it up in five years time. As he is leaving, he stops to ask one more question — “Will the car be ready on a Tuesday?” The dealer looks a bit surprised, but he counts out the days and says the car will indeed be ready on a Tuesday. “Well that won’t do, the plumber is coming over that Tuesday.”

Former president Jimmy Carter is giving a speech to an audience in Japan. Most of the audience speaks only Japanese, so there is also a live translator present. He opens the speech with a light joke, the translator translates it, and the crowd erupts in laughter. This confuses Carter, he didn’t think the joke was quite that funny, it was more of a chuckler than a centerpiece of a comedy set, but he continues the rest of the speech regardless without a hitch. Later, he asks the translator how he translated the joke to be so funny. The translator admits “well, I couldn’t translate it, so I panicked and said ‘President Carter told a funny joke. Please laugh.'””

My informant remembered this one from a YouTube video and retold it to me candidly. They mentioned that they interpret this joke as a way to show that Regan was a human being. Kinda shit at times but still a human who could tell a good joke. They also mentioned that this one shows how cool languages are. Word for word, the said “Languages are cool as shit.”

To me, I think the initial joke goes over my head, but the translation punchline is such a self-referential and unexpected joke. I would agree with my informant that this joke shows how cool languages can be. I also think that it could be trying to show how translators are not perfect, especially in the moment.

Bird’s Narrative Joke

“This story was told to me by a man by the name of Bird who was a great influence on my childhood, and he had heard it from another man by the name of James who had, in turn, had a great influence on Bird’s childhood. Now James had a special talent for weaving stories into the greater meaning of life and connecting narratives into the world around him, but that talent has been lost over the generations and you’re now stuck with me. Regardless, this story takes place in the 70s, when a great deal of pit toilets were being dug by hand in the area (I swear this is normal and made a lot more sense in the context where this story originates from. There’s no municipal sewage system and it’s very difficult to get heavy machinery up into the mountains). There was a great deal of competition around who could dig the deepest pit toilet, who could excavate the most rocks out of the way while digging, and so on. These competitions had been going for a while now, and some top diggers were emerging. Some of these top pit-toilet-excavators were down in town one day, eating lunch at a Chinese place, and preparing for a new dig the next day. Everyone got their fortune cookies, and one of them reads “Through perseverance comes failure.” It gets scoffed at and thrown out, and not much else is thought of it. The excavation of a new pit toilet starts the next day, helmed by the guy that got the fortune cookie. but not long after they start digging, they run into a rock. Back in those days, the rocks would get classified by how close their size was to common household items, you’d have your teacups and bread boxes and flower planters and so on.

After a little inspection, the man figured that the rock he had run into was a washing machine. People rarely move washing machines, they’re absolutely enormous, and oftentimes it’s easier to just start a new hole. Surely, this was the failure that the fortune cookie had warned about. But he persevered, forming a rope harness and with a great deal of effort, he managed to haul the rock out of the hole. Happy with his work, he continued digging, going deeper, proud of getting the obstacle out of the way. A little while later though, and he runs into a fridge (not a real fridge, a rock the size of a fridge). Nobody moves fridges, they’re not only not worth the effort, they’re practically impossible to move. But the man decided he’d have a go at it. He’d already persevered through the washing machine, and failing at the fridge would only mean fulfilling the predictions of the fortune cookie. The fridge couldn’t be budged by ropes alone, but undeterred, the man builds a crane out of logs and pulleys, and with the help of some others, they manage to pull the fridge out of the ground. It was getting later now, and so the man went back to digging — after all, what can stop him now? He’s moved a fridge. Nobody has done that before, and now he’s there and he’s done it. There’s nothing bigger that can stop him, he’s just proved that with enough perseverance, anything can be moved, anything can be overcome. And so he digs and digs. Until his shovel hits a floor. Now, in an oral retelling of the story, there would be a nice long pause here, but I can’t really do that in writing, can I? So just sit there and pretend like I was quiet for a bit instead of speeding on through till the end of this story. There’s no way around the floor, no matter how far you dig to the side. He had persevered, and now he had failed. That pit toilet is still around to this day, so if you’re ever in the area, there’s one pit toilet that’s just slightly shallower than the rest.”

My informant first heard this piece at a summer camp they worked at during a campfire story. This story’s meaning, in their eyes, is to be careful around fortune cookies and to avoid digging pit toilets if possible.

This story seems to be a cautionary tale about fate, destiny, and also, perhaps about pit toilets. This narrative joke has a predetermined ending that the listener knows of, but waits in anticipation to see if the character will defy fate. Given the context, it is likely that the primary intent of the story is cautionary. Whether it is a cautionary tale about fate, fortune cookies, or pit toilets is up to the listener.

Bloody Mary

The story goes that if you’re in a bathroom or closed room with a mirror and you spin around three times and the lights are off and the door is closed. If you spin around saying Bloody Mary three times and you look in the mirror, you will see Bloody Mary and probably die.

My informant heard this story as a kid from a friend. She was told this story in an afterschool program in elementary school. It was around 4 pm, still during daylight hours, but it still freaked her out and made it so that she would not want to go to the bathroom alone. She did believe in Bloody Mary as a kid because it was based off of a real person, so it gives the feeling that it is real, which makes it creepy. 

Bloody Mary seems to be a creepy story spread mostly among young children to pass the time. It is not really clear why the story persists even after many years since the historical origin has passed. My only assumption for the persistence of this tale among children is that it is both a right of passage and as a show of maturity.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian American Christmas Eve celebration. J’s family has been celebrating with this feast just for the past few years, and he says it allows them to connect with their culture and ethnic community. In accordance with online descriptions of the grand meal, the “essentially have a dinner party with 7 different fish cooked into the dishes.”

According to Eataly, the tradition was started by Italian immigrants in the U.S. in the early 1900s and while the exact origins/meanings are difficult to trace, “the ancient tradition of eating fish on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic custom of abstinence from meat and dairy products on the eve of certain holidays, including Christmas. The number seven is rooted back in ancient times and it can be connected to multiple Catholic symbols…” Therefore, like for J’s family, one can presume that both the meals and symbolism present were reminiscent of “home” for early participants in the Feast.

He believes it to be a celebration of abundance and the “being better off” that comes with immigrating to the U.S. as well as a ritualistic acknowledgement by Italian Americans of their cultural history and the sacrifices and hard work of their ancestors.