This wonderfully rude little story has been around for a long time.
Every year, before they can set up the National Christmas Tree, the White House deputizes a special task force to handle police problems in the Ellipse, which is that big grassy area just south of Pennsylvania Ave. In addition to problems with the homeless and drug dealers, the unit has recently had a lot of trouble clearing out all the pimps and prostitutes. To handle the crisis, the … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/washington-dc-park/
A certain nameless person entered the pun contest ten different times in the hope that at least one of his puns might win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.… Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/bad-luck/
There is an art to capturing polar bears. Each Inuit village has a differnt technique and there is considerable competition between villages in how effective their techniques really are. The most famous village of all had a technique that worked nearly all of the time. The technique stayed a secret until one old gentleman finally told the leaders of the other villages.
“The technique,” he said, “is to make a large hole in the ice. Then, you must surround the … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/catching-polar-bears/
A variant of this story is in Himie Koshevoy’s “Treasure Jest of Best Puns.”
Every day a peddler pulled his cart of wool from his home to the village market. It was a long trip. He had to travel around the perimeter of a large lake that was owned by the town tycoon, a modern-day Scrooge.
One day during the winter the lake froze over. The peddler realized that he could cut off two miles from his trip, if he … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/frozen-story/
Another original spurious-synapse product from Chris Cole.
Bee keeper Ben R. Jizer prided himself on the very potent, flavorful honey his bees produced. It was quite by accident, however, that he discovered another rather peculiar quality of his honey. It dissolved rubber gaskets. How, you may ask, did he discover that?
One of his honey distributors suggested to Ben that he package his honey in bottles resembling little glass barrels, fitted with a handy spigot on the side for dispensing … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/go-with-the-flow/
This story exists with many different versions of the story and punchline. A different version was by Joel Oppenheimer in “Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?”
Two friends, Count Jan Schweik of Czechoslovakia and Sir Hugh Lowndes of the UK, were hunting in the Austrian Alps. Having spent most of the morning hunting unsuccessfully for the fabled mammoth Austrian brown bear, they decided to rest and enjoy the lunch packed for them at the inn where they were staying. The sat … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/barely-told/
This is an olde tale. This updated and expanded version was posted by Stan Kegel on the groaners listserv.
. The Beast of London
By the 15th century, the Templar Knights had disappeared, but deep in the bowels of the British Museum in a case well sealed and protected lies a strange memorial to their impact on the city of London.
London of the early 12th century was on its way to becoming an impressive city, but its life and … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/monster-tale/
A news item this morning was about a local coal miner. It seems that his advocation was painting, but since he couldn’t afford to buy canvasses he simply painted on the wall of his small cottage. Unfortunately, a gang of youths broke into his cottage earlier this week and defaced his paintings. Yesterday the young miscreants were charged in court with having “corrupted the murals of a miner.”… Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/the-coal-miner/
The manager of the Wax Museum of Horrors called in his janitor, and told him that he would be fired if he didn’t do a better job of polishing the figures in the museum.
The janitor replied: “I am sorry, but I buffer ghouls badly.”… Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/wax-museum/
Off the coast of Newfoundland, a great many fishermen do their fishing at night. They navigate solely by the light of the moon, scorning more sophisticated methods. Of course, from time to time this method fails, and shipwrecks are the result. The Department of Fisheries was reviewing statistics one day, and was shocked to discover how many shipwrecks there were during night fishing. When they discovered that the fishermen were navigating by the light of the moon, they promptly installed … Read the rest...
https://shaggy-dogs.briancombs.net/off-the-coast-of-newfoundland/