Jumbo Joke: Humor the Way You Like It

A Thanksgiving Feast

As noted in the intro to this site, I don't accept submissions. And while I don't really want comments, either, this long-time reader sent a "comment" so good I asked if I could run it here. Mike in Texas said that would be fine, so here it is.

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Thanks for a great Thanksgiving joke about the pregnant bird. Years ago, we were avid customers of a video rental store down the street and on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I rented a movie. The woman who owned the store asked the obligatory question, "So how did you enjoy Turkey Day?"

With a completely straight face (I'm bad about that) I replied, "Oh, turkey for Thanksgiving is so cliche."

"So what did you have?" she asked curiously.

"Penguin," I replied matter-of-factly.

Without going into all the details, she was incredulous and I was unwavering in my insistence that we had penguin for Thanksgiving. Of course, when I got home, I had a good laugh telling my wife about it. Not thinking anything of it at the time, my kids (ages 5 & 7) were seeing what a kick we got out of the story. We watched the movie, it was still early, so we decided to return the movie and rent another.

This time my wife went with me. The store owner immediately ambushed her, "Do you know what your husband said you had for Thanksgiving?"

My wife is also good about keeping a straight face. "Sure," she answered, "penguin."

The look of shock was priceless. We ended up renting another movie, taking it home, and finally allowing ourselves to laugh at the great joke and still thinking nothing of my kids seeing our enjoyment. So, on Saturday, doing a bunch of things, one was returning the video. Not only my wife was with me, but our kids, too. The store owner still wasn't ready to be convinced and she decided to ambush the kids. "What did you eat for Thanksgiving?" she asked them.

Almost in unison, both of them shouted, "PENGUIN!" It couldn't have been more perfect if it had been planned. At that point, the poor woman's expression crashed, and she resignedly admitted, "Well, I guess it's possible."

My wife answered, "Sure, what do you think the Eskimos eat?"

That seemed to make perfect sense to the store owner and she finally admitted defeat. All of which, of course, gave us an additional laugh at home about Eskimos living near the North Pole, while penguins come from the South Pole.

How often do you get a running gag out of an off-the-cuff remark...?

As we left she had one final question. "So what does penguin taste like, anyway? Chicken?"

Leave it to my kids to state the obvious, "Like penguin!"

Posted December 11, 2006 8:00 AM