August 2, 2008
The reason I’m so unladylike
This is the kind of joke we heard at the dinner table when I was a kid:
A guy is looking through the ads in the back of the paper and he sees one from the zoo that says, “Healthy man needed to mate with albino gorilla. $1,000.” So he calls up the zoo people and says, “Hello, I’m calling about your ad? The one about mating with the albino gorilla?” They’re very happy to hear from him, as he’s the only person who’s called. So he says, “Yes, I can do it, but on three conditions.” Sure, of course, what are the conditions?
“1. No kissing on the mouth.
2. The kids have to be raised Catholic.*
3. You’ll have to give me a couple of weeks to come up with the money.”
I’m telling you, the Average vs. Olympics video is much funnier.
* Sorry, I heard this joke so long ago that it was a Polish joke at the time. Adjust to suit your local conditions.
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4 Responses to “The reason I’m so unladylike”
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It is also worth noting, re my family and how undignified we are, that I’m pretty sure this is one of the jokes we recited in my dad’s hospital room on the night that he was dying.
I should also explain that I’m just giving you the barest outline so that you can build the joke up yourself. The version we first heard was probably ten minutes long, with all sorts of little details and elaborations. We got all our best jokes, most of them dirty, from a family friend who had been a jazz trumpeter and who was a brilliant storyteller. He died about six months after my dad did.
Former zoo-keeper Pinky Diablo might appreciate this joke.
India, this confirms what I’ve suspected for a while: it’s not that your family is so undignified but that they consort with undignified hangers-on. Like us.