Really bad jokes - don't be afraid to post yours here

An Irish wedding

You beat me to it, I almost posted that last night when my daughter showed it to me, but I got drunk instead.

A Minnesota farmer named Ole had a car accident. He was hit by a truck owned by the Eversweet Company.

In court, the Eversweet Company's hot-shot attorney questioned him thus: 'Didn't you say to the state trooper at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine?"

Ole responded: 'vell, I'lla tell you vat happened dere. I'd yust loaded my fav'rit cow, Bessie, into da... '

'I didn't ask for any details', the lawyer interrupted. 'Just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, 'I'm fine!'?'

Ole said, 'vell, I'd yust got Bessie into da trailer and I vas drivin' down da road.... '

The lawyer interrupted again and said, 'Your Honor, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the police on the scene that he was fine. Now several weeks after the accident, he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."

'By this time, the Judge was fairly interested in Ole's answer and said to the attorney: 'I'd like to hear what he has to say about his favorite cow, Bessie'.

Ole said: 'Tank you' and proceeded. "Vell as I vas saying, I had yust loaded Bessie, my fav'rit cow, into de trailer and was drivin' her down de road vin dis huge Eversweet truck and trailer came tundering tru a stop sign and hit me trailer right in da side by golly. I was trown into one ditch and Bessie was trown into da udder ditch. By yimminy yahosaphat I vas hurt, purty durn bad, and didn't vant to move. An even vurse dan dat,, I could hear old Bessie a moanin' and a groanin'. I knew she vas in terrible pain yust by her groans. Shortly after da accident, a policeman on a motorbike turned up. He could hear Bessie a moanin' and a groanin' too, so he vent over to her. After he looked at her, and saw her condition, he took out his gun and shot her right between the eyes. Den da policeman came across de road, gun still in hand, looked at me, and said,..."How are you feelin'?"

'Now wot da fock vud you say?'

That's a story my Minnesotan swedish friend (baked rye bread at 4.a.m.. before work) would have told.

Made me smile.

It's a joke in Flaubert's Salammbo ed. Chapter XIV The Pass of the Hatchet.

Yeh, but he didn't tell it right.

Flaubert told everything right ed.

Hard to believe that such a thing is possible, but that joke is even older than I am. And I've heard it told in dialects other than that sad pseudo-Scandinavian. And sometimes it's a horse, not ole Bessie that gets shot.

Good work, edgar. That is a really bad joke.

I acknowledge that the joke is ancient. I chuckle over many retreads. I'm funny that way.

Flaubert's joke doesn't involve any horses or cows or any softee-babee stuff like that. In the Pass of the Hatchet things got so tense that if you weren't "fine" you got your throat cut and butchered and spitted on sticks after lots were drawn for what Joyce called your "inner organs".

I presume Flaubert got it from one of the many Classical documents he studied in order to create such a masterpiece. Such scenes happened many times in those days whereas the cow and the horse scene have to be dreamed up first to get to the punch line and the circumstances dreamed up are ridiculous because, for one thing, they are too circumstantial, and for another, I don't think the cop would shoot the cow as readily as he did unless his Dad had a meat shop.

It could have happened but it is very unlikely. Hence the joke is told backwards from the punch line and thus is inauthentic. Flaubert's circumstances were real enough. His joke is in life.

So is yours if you focus on the lawyer. And how a hick made him look a right gump.

You would like that I know.

It tickled my "inner organs" nevertheless.

I think the point, Spendi, is that the Falubert version is neither funny nor intended to be particularly laughter-arousing. The longer, more up-to-date versions, on the other hand . . .

I think it was intended to be funny.

Maybe it loses in the translation.

A man goes for a job with a blacksmith. The balacksmith asks if he's had any experience shoeing horses. The man replies, 'No, but I once told a donkey to **** off.'