Posted 19 May 2007 - 11:37 AM
I love that joke dearly.
I just realized that my favorite joke doesn't work in print. Gosh damn it.
Fortunately, I have another joke that only kind of doesn't work in print.
So there was this tribe of cannibals, and they live in the middle of the jungle. It's a very nice jungle, gets enough rain has lots of toxic animal and plant species, moths the size of small birds, so that's good. In this tribe, people learn their trades through apprenticeships. There are lots of good jobs around- toxic plant avoidance teacher, not toxic, but in fact edible, plant finder- but the very best, most coveted job is cook. You see, these people lived entirely on human meat, which can taste quite bad if prepared improperly. Well, this one young man goes to the head cook, and says, "I want to learn to be a cook." The cook, of course, gets people turning up like this all the time, and clearly he can't accept every hopeful cook who walks up to him and asks for an apprenticeship. So he says to the boy, "Look, I am trying to find an apprentice. But how do I know that you're really serious about this, and not just in it for the fame and glory that goes with the job?" The boy falls to his knees and begs as if his life depends on it for the apprenticeship, explaining how he knows he was born to cook, that he has talent, that he's a good worker, and all he wants is a chance to show it. Well, the cook relents, eventually, because the boy is also very good at making puppy eyes, and he says, "All right. I'll let you on with me. But I warn you, it's not going to be easy." The boy is elated, and want to start immediately. So the cook leads him over to a dead body and says, "All right. The first thing you're going to learn to do is to skin meat, without wasting any blood, if you can help it." The cook shows him how to do it, then shows him how to do it again, and again, and again, and again, maybe fifty times, before the sun goes down and it's too hard to see what he's doing. The next day, the boy is extremely excited about this new apprenticeship, so he promises himself that he'll do the very best job he can, and always do what the cook tells him to. So he's sitting there, skinning the bodies, remembering exactly the riht way to get around tricky bits like nostrils and ears and things without wasting the meat, very carefully. In fact, it takes him first hours to finish his first skinning. Very excited, he calls the cook over. The cook nods at him,and tells him to skin another one. So, he keeps going. He keeps going, in fact, for six months, just skinning, day and night, getting almost no sleep, his fingers covered in bleeding sores from holding the knife so long. But he keeps going and he keeps going and he keeps going until finally, one day, the cannibal cook says, "All right. You can move on to tenderizing the meat now. " So he spends four days telling this apprentice all the ancient secrets about how to tenderize meat, then another two days showing him how to do it. The apprentice spends a year and a half just hitting meat again and again with a sacred tenderizing hammer, which he also learns to make himself, meditates with, and really becomes one with. And finally the cook comes up to him and says, "You've learned everything I can teach you about tenderizing." He pauses dramatically. "Now, you can move on to cooking meat." So he imparts the secret knowledge of how to cook meat, how to roast it on a spit, how to build a grill and make some really awesome human hot dogs. Two years later, the apprentice has burns all over his body, he's had to have primitive reconstructive surgery, he's stabbed himself with meat skewers multiple times and has permanent nerve damage in his left arm. But finally, finally, the cook comes up to him while he's getting a slice of leg muscle roasted just the right way, and says, "You've gotten very good at this. I think it's finally time for the last step- I'm going to teach you how to spice the meat."
Of course, spicing meat is a very difficult thing to do. It's really more ofan art than a science. In total, it takes the apprentice five years to master it, putting just the right amount of each spice in, learning how to collect the plants for the spices, to dry them just right so they won't mold, and finally, one day, he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns around and sees the cook standing behind him, a solemn expression on his face. "I've taught you everything I know," says the older man. "Now you have everything you need to be the chief cook of any cannibal tribe you like. We caught some missionaries yesterday, and I'd really like you to cook them for the rest of the tribe. " Well, you can imagine how excited the apprentice was. He was up day and night, working his very hardest to make the feast just perfect. He takes care to skin them just right to preserve all of the meat, to tenderize it so much it's nearly pudding, cooks them to perfection, adds just the right amount of basil, and arranges them artistically on the huge platters. The meal looks so beautiful that when he brought it out, half of the dinner guests had tears in their eyes. Tension was high as, all together, the guests took their first bite. But within minutes, the peaceful scene had dissolved into chaos. Most of the guests were lying on the ground groaning and holding their stomachs, and the rest were vigourously vomiting into the bushes. The apprentice, panicked, runs to the cook for help. "They're all sick, and throwing up and everything!", he says frantically. "I don't know what I did wrong!" "Just tell me everything you did." says the old man.
"Well," says the apprentice, "I skinned them just like you taught me, and then I tenderized them, and then I made sure that I boiled the meat for exactly half an hour-"
"You boiled them?!?"
"-Yes, I-"
"You FOOL!" groaned the cook. "Those are friars!"
"YOU'RE MISSING A PERIOD. YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY, DON'T YOU? YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY THAT YOU FUCK WITH GRAMMAR? WELL, FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR MISSING PERIOD! I HOPE IT MEANS YOUR SLUTTY, NON-PUNCTUATED WAYS HAVE GOTTEN YOU TEEN-PREGNANT!"