Joker King - find funny jokes from here.

Nervous_Olive_5754 24 day.ago

Now, I have known absent-minded men in my time. I once met a banker so distracted that he absentmindedly signed over his own house to a stray dog—though, having met his wife, I suspect it was not absentmindedness so much as desperate cunning. But if ever there was a man who could get lost in his own shadow, it was Professor Erasmus T. Abernathy. He was a scholar of some renown, famous for his contributions to the field of theoretical physics and infamous for his habit of boiling his own socks instead of eggs, which made him a subject of concern in both academic and culinary circles. He had once been tasked with delivering a keynote address to the Royal Society of Science but managed instead to deliver a laundry receipt to an audience of dignitaries, while his actual speech was later found tucked neatly into the breast pocket of his laundered and pressed overcoat. One day, the professor set out on a simple errand: he was to meet a publisher who had requested he submit an article on the mathematical structure of humor. The meeting was to take place at noon. It was now 11:58. He was feeling quite confident. He put on his best overcoat, buttoned it up entirely the wrong way, and, finding that it felt peculiar, deduced that he must have gained an unexpected amount of weight in one shoulder overnight. He made a mental note to investigate this phenomenon later, then left his house and promptly walked east, despite the meeting being due west. Along the way, he became distracted by a rather fascinating cobblestone, which led him to a most remarkable conclusion about planetary motion, which in turn occupied his mind so thoroughly that he stepped into a carriage—not his own—and rode it halfway across town before realizing that he was neither the driver nor the passenger, but had simply been standing on the back step the entire time, clutching his hat and deep in thought. Now hopelessly lost, he tried to retrace his steps but was unable to recall if he had left the house at all, or if he had merely dreamed of doing so. He checked his pocket for a map and found, instead, a note he had written to himself earlier that morning. It read: “Remember the thing!” This was deeply unhelpful. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, however, he recalled something about humor. The nature of humor. The structure of humor. Yes! He was meant to be studying the construction of jokes. If he could only write one, perhaps it would jog his memory. He stopped at the first establishment he came across—a quiet, dimly lit tavern where a bartender was wiping down the counter with the same look of existential resignation one sees in particularly reflective cattle. “Sir,” Abernathy said, removing his hat and promptly setting it ablaze in the nearest candle. “I require a drink, and also a joke.” The bartender, accustomed to peculiar men setting their possessions on fire in his establishment, poured him a whiskey and asked what kind of joke he had in mind. “A knock-knock joke!” the professor declared. “They are simple, structured, and should allow me to reorient myself.” The bartender, having little else to do, nodded. Abernathy straightened his burnt lapel. “Knock-knock.” “Who’s there?” The professor frowned. “I… do not know.” A long silence stretched between them. The bartender, never one to be thrown off, took a sip of his own drink. “Then I can’t let you in.” The professor blinked. “That’s it.” “What’s it?” “The joke. It is the ultimate joke. We are all knocking, are we not? We knock upon the door of knowledge, of understanding, of meaning itself. And yet—” he spread his hands in despair—“we never truly know who is there.” The bartender stared at him. Then, with the steady patience of a man who had been paid too little for too long, he topped off the professor’s drink and said, “Buddy, I just meant you don’t belong here.” The professor finished his whiskey, set his coat on fire for symmetry, and staggered out the door, presumably still knocking. Some say he’s still out there, wandering the world, trying to finish his joke. Others say he found enlightenment in that moment and promptly forgot it. But if you ever hear a knock on your door and nobody’s there, just remember: it might be Professor Abernathy. Or it might be the bartender, making sure you’re not about to set fire to your own coat.