In my four-book (soon to be five!) comedy/sci-fi series, cosmic bicyclist Jack Miller visits some weird, wild—and dangerous—worlds through gates along the Ultimate Bike Path. Tempering the craziness in all of the books are occasional serious chapters, though I’ll always finish up with an outrageous one.
When I resumed the series during the pandemic quarantine a few years ago with Back on the Bike Path, I realized that the now senior citizen Jack had a few more things to say of a serious nature. After a soapbox rant about this country’s treatment of Native Americans through the centuries, I really had to loosen things up. Hence, Chapter 24: Garden of a Thousand Bad Jokes. Here are a couple of scenes.
I came to a stop on a dirt path that meandered through a forest, or at least somewhere that constituted a botanist’s wet dream, with plants and trees and shrubs galore, kind of like a garden on steroids, and quite colorful.
So why was I here? Don’t know, just going with the flow. Why do I keep asking myself that question? As it is said—many times—all shall be revealed.
“I got fired from my job at the bank.”
Huh? Who the hell said that? Sounded like a woman. I looked around; nothing but flora. “Excuse me?”
“No, that is not the proper response. Try again: I got fired from my job at the bank.”
“Okay, why did you get fired from your job at the bank?”
“An old lady asked me to check her balance, so I pushed her over!”
Whoever it was started laughing her ass off. Other voices joined in, all cracking up. Sounded like one of those laugh tracks from an old sitcom. I still didn’t see anyone…
Wait, a skinny bay laurel was shaking, and so was a second one next to it. For that matter, so were a bunch of horsetails and some hollyhocks. The bay laurel closest to me bent over and got in my face.
“What, you didn’t think that was funny?” it said, rather pissedly.
“A rabbi, a priest, and an imam walk into a bar…”
“No, uh, yeah, it was a regular riot,” I replied. “A bit hard of hearing, you know, being elderly and all.” What the hell was I supposed to say!
The bay laurel bent back as the other plants stopped laughing. In a bellowing voice it said, “Why are men like diapers?”
This time I was all over it. “I don’t know, why are men like diapers?”
“Because they’re usually full of shit, but disposable!”
Once again they all cracked up…lots of annoying chuckles and titters. I just kind of stood there.
“You’re not laughing!” a male’s shrill voice from the second bay laurel exclaimed. “That was one of her best.”
“This guy sucks,” a white lupine said, and it whipped out in my direction, slapping my left butt cheek like some shmuck in the locker room would do with a rolled-up towel.
“Ow! Hey, watch it!” I cried in my I’m-not-a-big-fan-of-pain voice.
“Now now,” the jokester chided, “let us give this whoever-it-is another chance. Okay, I broke my arm in two places. You know what the doctor told me?”
“No, what?” I muttered.
“He said, ‘Stay away from those places!’”
I swear, it sounded like 50,000 people were laughing. That struck me as funnier than the joke itself, so I found it easy to crack up. Probably saved me another swat.
“Take my wife, please!”
“Ah, see?” the bay laurel said. “The guy does have a sense of humor. Here’s another one—”
“Wait, let me say something,” I interrupted.
“Okay, but make it good.”
Jeez! Anyway, a short stay in Funnyville seemed the order of the day. “I just wanted you to point me in the direction of a mountain, or a steep hill, or even a deep rift in the ground.”
The other bay laurel and some of the hollyhocks started laughing their…leaves off, but the white lupine said, “That’s not funny,” and it whapped me on the other butt cheek.
“Ow! Stop that, or I’ll overwater you!”
The first bay laurel shook its…branches and said, “The lupine is correct. Now, perhaps if you had said, ‘a mountain, a steep hill, and a deep rift walk into a bar,’ then perhaps—”
“I’m outta here,” I announced, and I dodged a few more whaps from other white lupines as I shuffled through a sort of herbaceous gauntlet.
“Don’t go away mad, just go away,” an unidentified plant warbled.
“What’s red and bad for your teeth?” the first bay laurel (I think) called out after me. “A brick!”
Just like an old vaudevillian, I left ’em laughing. Jeez, what was this place, the Garden of a Thousand Bad Jokes?
After a number of similar encounters as Jack rides through the Garden of a Thousand Bad Jokes, he comes across some rather odd- looking plants:
“What did one fly say to the other fly?”
The combined power of fifty old laugh tracks propelled me past the flower fields, and once again I rode between rows of what could’ve been mistaken for a cornfield. No sausages this time; each stalk contained a bunch of what I first thought were round, light tan buds or something, each about the size of a golf ball. Curiosity drew me over to one of the stalks, where I bent over for a closer look.
Nope, not golf balls…they were matzoh balls. Oy!
“A study was done to learn why Jewish women liked Chinese food so much.”
A female voice; well, at least I was ready this time. “And did they learn why Jewish women liked Chinese food so much?”
“The study revealed that it is because Won Ton spelled backwards is Not Now!”
I cracked up; so did a whole lot of matzoh balls. Never heard that one before.
“A car hit an elderly Jewish man. The paramedic asked him, ‘Are you comfortable?’ The man said, ‘I make a good living.’”
More chortling. A male voice then said, “I just got back from a pleasure trip. I took my mother-in-law to the airport.”
Oy, were they in hysterics! The same voice said, “What’s the difference between a Rottweiler and a Jewish mother?”
“Do tell,” I replied, “what is the difference between a Rottweiler and a Jewish mother?”
“Eventually, the Rottweiler lets go! And why do Jewish mothers make great parole officers?”
Say what! “I don’t know, why do Jewish mothers make great parole officers?”
“What’s the difference between a Rottweiler and a Jewish mother?”
“Because they never let anyone finish a sentence!”
Laughter and oys galore, and the best part: nothing sticky, smelly, disgusting, or painful was being tossed my way.
“There’s a big controversy on the Jewish view of when life begins.” A female voice again. “In the Jewish tradition, the fetus is not considered viable until it graduates from medical school!”
Okay, that one really cracked me up. The same voice then said, “One last thought. A history of every Jewish holiday, in nine words: They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!”
The loudest response yet…for about ten seconds, and then silence, like the power button had been pushed. The matzoh balls were done.
When you’re writing comedy, satire, or the like, try not to end the book on a downer. Readers will not appreciate it.