From the groaners and the Jest For Kids listservs.
A man worked nights and his workplace was on one side of a cemetery and he lived on the opposite side? He was very afraid of ghosts and rather than walk through the cemetery at night, he walked two or three miles around it. Both ways.
This went on for a couple of years. One day, he said to himself, “What am I afraid of?” That night he walked through the cemetery and back. Of course, nothing happened.
He continued to do this from then on. After a year or so, he had actually beaten a path into the grass!
One day, they dug a grave right through his path and it was a deep grave. He fell into it and started to pull himself out, but he was just pulling dirt in onto himself.
He decided just to wait it out. When the folks came to work in the morning, they would get him out. He snuggled up in a corner, wrapped his arms around himself and tried to get a little sleep.
About an hour later, another guy fell into the grave. The new guy was unaware that he was not alone in the grave. The man in the corner watched the newcomer doing the same things he had tried.
Then the newcomer heard a voice from the darkened corner of the grave which said, “You aren’t going to get out of here.”
But he did! Fast!