“Who?” asks the cabbie.
“Frank Fielding. He did everything right. Great tennis player, wonderful golfer, sang like Pavarotti.”
“Sounds like quite a guy.”
“Not only that, he remembered everyone’s birthday, was a wine connoisseur, and could fix anything. And his wardrobe? Immaculate. He was the perfect man. No one could ever measure up to Frank.”
“Amazing. How’d you meet him?”
“Oh, I never met Frank.”
“How do you know so much about him?”
“I married his widow.”
— STEPHANIE CAPLEN
S
teve, my accountant husband, and I both suffer from insomnia. One night I suggested we try a relaxation technique. Lying with my eyes closed, I described a calming scene: “We’re in a beautiful bungalow on a tropical island. A gentle breeze comes through the French doors that lead to our private beach…”
A wide-awake voice startled me. “How much is this vacation costing us?” Steve asked.
— BRANDY DELVES
Halfway through a romantic dinner, my husband smiled and said, “You look so beautiful under these lights.” I was falling in love all over again when he added,
“We gotta get some of these lights.”
— SHAWNNA COFFEY
M
y pregnant daughter and her husband were checking out a new birth facility that was more like a spa. The birthing room had a hot tub, soft music, and candlelight.
“What do you think?” she asked.
He looked around. “Isn’t this how we got here in the first place?”
— STEVE SANDERSON, GCFL.NET
O
n the last night of our childbirth classes, our teacher took us to see the maternity center. We were gathered by the door when a mom, clearly in labor, and her nervous husband came rushing down the hall.
When he saw our group of pregnant women, he screamed, “Oh, my God. Look at the size of that line!”
— RACHEL ZEBOSKI
W
e had been trying for a child for years, so I was ecstatic when I got up at five one morning, took a home pregnancy test, and found I was expecting.
“Richard,” I yelled to my husband, “we’re going to have a baby!”
“Great,” he said, and rolled over.
“How can you go back to sleep?”
Muttering into his pillow, he said, “I’m stocking up.”
— JUDITH FRIEDMAN
“F
or sale,” read the ad in our hospital’s weekly newsletter, “sleeveless wedding gown, white, size 8, veil included. Worn once, by mistake.”
— ELIZABETH EVANS
M
y wife’s doctor wanted to wean her off antidepressants. “What would happen if you stopped taking them?” he asked.
“To me? Nothing,” she said.
“But all of a sudden, my husband becomes a real jerk.”
— D. D.
W
hen my husband pointed out my tendency to retell the same stories over and over, I reminded him that he was just as guilty.
“Allow me to clarify,” he said in response. “I review. You repeat.”
— JACQUELINE COOLEY
A
fter my second year of medical school, I moved back home. One night I was up late studying for my clinical exam. Because my father woke me every morning at seven, I put a note on my door: “DO NOT DISTURB. Studying until 3 a.m.”
This got me no sympathy from my dad, who is himself a doctor. He left a note attached to mine: “The hotel management hopes you’re enjoying your stay. We’d like to remind you that checkout was at noon—approximately six years ago.”
— VARGHESE ABRAHAM
What’s the difference between an outlaw and an in-law?
Outlaws are wanted.
I
was sprawled on the living-room couch watching my favorite show on the Food Network when my husband walked in.
“Why do you watch those food shows?” he asked. “You don’t even cook.”
Glaring back at him, I asked, “Then why do you watch football?”
— LINDSAY WRIGHT
L
eaving the party late, two friends compare notes. “I can never fool my wife,” the first says. “I turn off the car engine, coast into the garage, sneak upstairs and undress in the bathroom. But she always hears me. And she wakes up and yells at me for being out late.”
“You should do what I do,” says his buddy. “I roar into the garage, stomp up the steps, throw open the door, and start kissing my wife. And she pretends to be asleep.”
— ARI ROSNER
O
ur family took hours to set up camp on a recent outing. But the couple and three kids who pulled up next to us did it in mere minutes.
“How did you manage that?” I asked the father.
“I have a system,” he said. “No one goes to the bathroom until everything is set up.”
— ARI ROSNER
L
eave it to my husband to make me feel good about my body. He was marveling about some football player who was five feet nine inches tall and weighed 250 pounds when I commented, “That’ll be me if I keep eating like I’ve been eating.”
“No, not you,” my beloved assured me. “You’ll never be five foot nine.”
— ELLEN BREUNIG
I
was cleaning a hotel room when the previous occupant came in, looking for her husband’s keys. We searched high and low without luck. I finally peeked underneath the bed closest to the wall.
“Don’t bother—that was my bed,” she said. “He wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it.”
— SHARON GARDNER
Marry an orphan:
You’ll never have to spend boring holidays with the in-laws.
— GEORGE CARLIN
F
or our first Thanksgiving my wife’s parents came over for dinner. My bride roasted a beautiful turkey, which she brought to the table on a silver tray. With a very sharp knife I carved it into lovely piles of thinly sliced white and dark meat. I smiled at my father-in-law, a well-known surgeon, and said, “How was that for a stunning bit of surgery?”
He laughed and replied, “Not bad. Now let’s see you put it back together.”
— CARL ROSS
W
hen I asked a friend the secret to his 52 years of marriage, he replied, “We never go to sleep angry.”
“That’s a great philosophy,” I noted.
“Yes. And the longest we’ve been awake so far is five days.”
— DON BOLDEN
C
onsidering divorce, I was feeling pretty blue. “It’s not just me,” I whined to my mother. “Do you know anyone who is happily married?” Mom nodded. “Your father.”
— C. HEINECKE
M
y wife’s first husband passed away at a young age, and she didn’t want that to be my fate. After watching me laze around all day, she said, “You need a hobby.”
“I have one—I collect rich widows,” I said, lying on the couch.
“Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” she replied. “I collect dead husbands.”
— GERIG HUGGINS
E
n route to Atlanta, my stepfather spotted some mules by the side of the road. “Relatives?” he asked my mother.
Not taking the bait, she responded, “Yeah, through marriage.”
— ERICA VANNOY
B
efore going out to a movie, my husband and I stopped at the town dump to drop off some garbage. As I waited for him in our pickup truck, a man walked by. Glancing at my dress and jewelry, he said, “I certainly hope this isn’t your first date.”
— VIDA MCHOES PICKETT
I
felt like my boyfriend, Brian, was taking me for granted. “You’re never home,” I complained. “All you want to do is hang out with your buddies. We only go out if they’re not available.”
> “That’s not true,” Brian protested. “You know I’d rather be with you than have fun.”
— LISA SIMONS
“I
had to stop seeing my girlfriend, the biologist,” a guy told his friend.
“Why?”
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said. “She kept trying to expose me to different cultures.”
— ROBERT HANSHEW
I pointed to the young couple in the car ahead of us. The woman had her head on the man’s shoulder. “Look,” I said to my husband. “We used to ride like that. What changed?”
Staring straight ahead, he replied, “I didn’t move.”
— BOBBIE MOONEY
O
n my parents’ 50th anniversary, I remarked to my father that he and Mom never seemed to fight.
“We battled,” he said, “but it never amounted to much. After a while one of us always realized that I was wrong.”
— GARY MARKMAN
A
group of guys are in the locker room when a cell phone rings. One of them picks it up.
Man: “Hello.”
Woman: “Honey, it’s me. Are you at the club?”
Man: “Yes.”
Woman: “Well, I have news. The house we wanted is back on the market. They’re asking $950,000.”
Man: “Well then, go ahead and make an offer, but make it $1.2 million so we’ll be sure to get it.”
Woman: “Okay. I’ll see you later. I love you!”
Man: “Bye. I love you too.”
The man hangs up. Then he asks, “Anyone know whose phone this is?”
— DENISE STEWART
W
hack! Right on the head with a rolled-up magazine! “What was that for?” the husband shouts.
“That,” his wife says, “was for the piece of paper I found—with the name Laurie Sue on it.”
“But dear,” he says, “that was just the name of a horse I bet on when I went to the track.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll let it go…this time.”
Two weeks later— whack!
“Now what?” he wails.
“Your horse called.”
— JODY L. ROHLENA
O
ne thing I’ve learned from my last relationship is that if an argument starts with, “What did you mean by that?” it’s not going to end with, “Now I know what you mean by that.”
— COMIC DONALD GLOVER
T
he downside to retirement, I told my daughter, a stay-at-home mom with three young girls, is that you no longer feel euphoric about Fridays. “When you’re retired, every day is Friday.”
“I know what you mean,” my daughter replied. “When you’re a stay-at-home mom, every day is Monday.”
— BRENDA JOULLIAN
C
hris was assigned a paper on childbirth and asked his parents, “How was I born?”
“Well, honey,” his mother said, “the stork brought you to us.”
“Oh,” he said. “So how were you and Daddy born?”
“The stork brought us.”
“What about Grandpa and Grandma?” Chris persisted.
“The stork brought them too!” Mom replied, squirming in her recliner.
A few days later Chris handed his paper to the teacher with an opening sentence that read, “This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn’t been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations.”
L
ying on her deathbed, a woman tells her husband of 60 years that he can finally open the chest at the foot of the bed, which had been off-limits to him throughout their marriage. Much to his surprise, he finds three ears of corn and $100,000 inside. “Why are there three ears of corn in here?” he asks.
“Every time I cheated on you, I put an ear of corn in the chest.”
“I forgive you,” said the husband. “But what about the $100,000?”
“Every time I got a bushel of corn, I sold it.”
We bought my mother a shelf for Christmas, and I asked my husband if he’d hang it as part of her gift.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Just remind me to take my tools.” I scribbled a note and stuck it on the gift.
“Holidays getting you down, Mom?” my daughter said. She pointed to my Post-it:
“Take items to hang self.”
— BEVERLY WOLF
E
ven with a thousand games, dolls, and crafts to choose from, my customer at the toy store still couldn’t find a thing for her grandson.
“Maybe a video or something educational?” I asked.
“No, that’s not it,” she said.
We wandered the aisles until something caught her eye: a laser gun with flashing lights and 15 different high-pitched sounds. “This is perfect,” she said, beaming. “My daughter-in-law will hate it.”
— MICHAEL TURNER
R
eturning home early from a business trip, a man finds his wife in the bedroom. She isn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
Surprised, he says, “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Why aren’t you dressed?”
“I have nothing to wear,” his wife answers.
“Nonsense,” he says, throwing open her closet. “You have a red dress, a green dress…Hi, Harry…a purple dress…”
“What’s a couple?” I asked my mother. She said, “Two or three.”
Which probably explains why her marriage collapsed.
— JOSIE LONG, ON COMEDY SMACK
“I
f I were to die first, would you remarry?” the wife asks.
“Well,” says the husband, “I’m in good health, so why not?”
“Would she live in my house?”
“It’s all paid up, so yes.”
“Would she drive my car?”
“It’s new, so yes.”
“Would she use my golf clubs?”
“No. She’s left-handed.”
— HAROLD HESS
A
be, an old penny-pincher from way back, was dying. On his deathbed, peering up through his cataracts, he asked, “Is my wife here?”
“Yes, I’m here next to you,” she answered.
“And the kids?”
“We’re here, Daddy,” the youngest answered.
“Is the rest of the family here too?”
“Around your bed,” his wife assured him.
At that, Abe sits up and yells, “So why is the kitchen light on?”
Scene: The Garden of Eden.
Eve to Adam: “Do you love me?”
— MASOUD SHIEHMORTEZA
B
oth of my parents work and lead hectic lives. So my father was bound to forget their wedding anniversary.
Remembering at the last minute, he sped to the stationery store, flew through the door, and breathlessly asked the salesclerk, “Where are the anniversary cards?”
To his surprise he heard my mother call out, “Over here, Bill.”
— ELIZABETH RANSOM
I
was pregnant with our eighth child and couldn’t visit my mom in the hospital, so my husband went instead.
“There’s a risk of sterility if you get that close to someone who’s having radiation treatments,” a nurse warned.
My husband smiled and said, “I know.”
— ARLENE CALDWELL
M
y wife wanted to play the violin at our wedding reception, but right before, a string snapped. Her mother made the announcement to our guests: “I’m sorry to say that Amy cannot perform today. Her G string broke.”
— BRET WALKER
T
he topic in the office break room was the high price of divorce.
“I should’ve taken out a home-improvement loan to pay for my attorney,” said one disgusted woman.
“Can you do that?” I wondered.
“She got her bum husband out of the house, didn’t she?” said a friend. “I’d call that a home impro
vement.”
— MARTI MCDANIEL
I
was presiding over a wedding when the best man asked if I wouldn’t mind also keeping an eye on the gift table. “There are a few people here the newlyweds don’t trust around all that money,” he confided.
“Then why on earth were they invited?” I asked.
Looking at me as if I were nuts, he said, “They’re family.”
— DAVID GILBERT
T
he new bride wanted everything to be perfect for the Thanksgiving dinner she was hosting for her in-laws. So she called the turkey hotline and said, “I bought a 12-pound bird. How long does it need to cook?”
“Just a minute,” said the hotline operator, paging through her reference book.
“Thanks!” said the bride as she hung up.
— MICHAEL DEMERS
I
’m not much of a gift wrapper, especially compared with the women who work at our shop. But I was the only one available the day a customer wanted a gift wrapped for his mother.
“Sorry,” I said, handing back a box covered with wrinkled, oddly taped paper. “It’s wrapped, but it sure looks like a guy did it.”
“Great,” he said happily. “Now my mom will think I did it myself.”
— ANDREW BRANNON
M
y girlfriend broke up with me. She said it’s because I was always correcting her. She came over to my house and said, “Eddie, we need to talk.”
I said, “My name is Eric.”
She said, “See! I can’t say anything right around you.”
— ERIC HUNTER, AS HEARD AT PUNCHLINE COMEDY CLUB IN ATLANTA
Laughter Really Is the Best Medicine: America's Funniest Jokes, Stories, and Cartoons Page 5
