Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Pretty Good Jokes

This week I've been driving around listening to Plenty of Pretty Good Jokes, a set of four compact discs from Garrison Keillor, full of rapid-fire short jokes, riddles, and funny stories. A Prairie Home Companion's annual Joke Show is the basis of this collection. There are lots of Lena and Ole jokes, and lots of jokes leftover from the Clinton Administration. What could be better than riding around in your car listening to hilarious jokes! And my car is a Toyota Prius. Save the environment, save money on gas and laugh all at the same time.

Here's some jokes:

Once there was a Norwegian who took his wife with him wherever he went so that he wouldn't have to kiss her goodbye.

Ole and Sven went on a fishing trip to Canada and come back with only three fish, and Sven says, "The way I figger it, Ole, each of them fish cost us $400. Well. At dat price it's a good ting we didn't catch any more of em than we did.

So Lena was competing in the Sons of Norway Swim Meet and she came in in last place in the hundred-yard breast stroke and she said to the judges "Oh say, I don't vant to complain, but I tink those other two girls were using der arms"!

They took a poll of American women, and they asked, "Would you have an affair with Bill Clinton?" and 70% said ,"NEVER AGAIN!!"

So ---- Dan Quayle, Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton went to Emerald City to see the Wizard of Oz. And Dan Quayle says, "I'm going to ask the wizard for a brain." And Newt Gingrich says, "I am going to ask him for a heart." And Clinton says, "I wonder where Dorothy is?"

"Hey Sven, how many Swedes does it take to grease a combine? " "I don't know, Ole." " Only two, if you run them through real slow. "

"Mama, I have da biggest feet in da third grade. Is dat becoss I'm Norvegian?" " No, it's because you're NINETEEN. "

So what's the difference between a Norwegian and a canoe? Well, a canoe will sometimes tip.

Say, I went and bought Lena a piano for her birthday and then about a week later I traded it in for a clarinet, because you know, with a clarinet, you can't sing.

So Ole got a car phone and on his way home on the freeway, he calls up Lena and he says, "Oh, Lena, I'm calling you from the freeway on my new car phone," and Lena says, "Be careful because on the radio they say that some nut is driving the wrong way on the freeway," and Ole says, "One nut ---- heck, there are hundreds of them!"

So Ole was hiking in the mountains of Norway and he slips on a wet rock and he falls over the edge of a five-hundred-foot cliff, and he falls twenty feet and he grabs hold of a bush that's growing out of a rock. And there he is, he's hanging looking down at this deep fjord down below him -- certain death -- and his hands start to perspire and he starts to slip on this bush and he yells out, "Is anybody up there?" And he heard a deep voice rings out in the fjord, "I'm here, Ole. It's the Lord, Ole. Have faith. Let go of that bush and I will save you." Ole looked down, and he looked up, and he says, "Is anyone else up there?"

"So, Ole --- I see you got a sign up that says, "Boat For Sale." But you don't own a boat, Ole. All you got is your old John Deere tractor and your combine." " Yup, and they're boat for sale."

"Hello? Funeral home? Yes? It's Ole. My wife Lena died. " "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. We'll send someone right away to pick up the body. Where do you live?" " At the end of Eucalyptus Drive." " Can you spell that for me?" " How 'bout if I drag her over to Oak Street and you pick her up der? "

So Sven and Ole go to the beach, and after a couple hours Sven says, "This ain't no fun. How come the girls aren't friendly to me?" "Well, I tell you, Sven, maybe if you put a potato in your swim trunks that would help." ---So Sven does, but he comes back to Ole later, and he says, "I tried what you told me with the potato, but it doesn't help." "No, Sven --- you're supposed to put the potato in the front."

In the middle of the show, a guy stands up and yells at the ventriloquist, "HEY! You've been making jokes about us Polish people enough! Cut it out!" And the ventriloquist says, "Take it easy. They're only jokes!" And the guy says, "I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to that little guy sitting on your knee!"

And I had no wrecks while listening to these cds.