Years ago my Father told me this joke, and I didn't get it.
See if you do:
A drunk stumbles into a funeral home as a service is in progress. In the middle of the eulogy he staggers down the aisle between horrified family members, bangs is fist on the casket, and bellows to the minister,
"BARTENDER! WHISKY, AND LEAVE THE BOTTLE!"
The pastor says to him, "My good man, this is not a tavern. You have entered into a funeral house by mistake, and we are commemorating this man's untimely death." And he points to the casket that the drunk is leaning on.
The drunk looks around the room at all the grieving friends and relatives, then down at the casket, and finally back up to the preacher.
He says, "Well in that case, gimme a beer!"
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Ok, here's the explanation:
A "bier" is the pedestal the casket sits on. It's pronounced the same as "beer". It's actually a pretty humorous joke, in my professional opinion. But when I was ten, it just elicited a blank stare. I like to think that if my dad had held off for ten more years before telling me I would have actually understood it.
My favorite part of the joke is actually this:
When you're a ten year old you repeat every goddam joke you hear to your friends, whether you understand it yourself or not. As a rule this means an awful lot of mysterious jokes and anecdotes centering on something called "sex" get passed around, and everybody laughs while at the same time feeling confused and stupid on the inside. But some jokes, like this one, are as far removed from sex as you can get. But just as unfathomable when you're ten.
Over the years I gradually removed this joke from my repertoire, since by high school no one felt compelled to laugh at jokes they didn't understand anymore. Besides, jokes about boobies and farts and dead babies and boobies were what all the Cool Kids were telling back then, and any deviation could well label you an outcast. So I took my dad's great beer/bier joke out of rotation and concentrated on making fun of womens' bodies. Because I was a Cool Kid, after all.
But then in college I thought I'd drag the old girl out of retirement. I was at a good school with lots of fellow students who thought they were walking dictionaries. Surely THEY'D understand the joke and finally give my father the hearty laughter he deserved!
Nope. One blank stare followed another. I'd lamely explain the pun, but that never works. The listener would just say "Ohhhh...ok." and turn the conversation to whatever intellectual pursuit we were pretending to be interested in that month.
At the time I was cooking at two different restaurants to help pay my tuition. One was a fancy restaurant where I somehow found myself elevated to sous chef after a year. But the other place was a dive, more of a diner really. I worked overnights on weekends, the sole cook/diswasher/cashier/puke cleaner/waiter in the place.
Almost every weekend an impeccably dressed gentleman would arrive at around 3am and order a turkey club. Never missed a weekend, never ordered anything else, and never dressed less than to the 9's. Among the crowd of capped grimy truckers, and locals nursing the last hours of a drunk, he stood out like the Noor Diamond in a field of manure.
One Saturday night, after several months of serving him turkey clubs, my curiosity got the better of my. Setting the sandwich/chips/pickle plate down in front of him, I asked what did that had him slumming at 3am in a diner in this part of town in such a nice Italian suit.
He told me he was a funeral director, and Saturdays are always busy well into the night.
A funeral director!
"Mister, have I got a joke for you: A drunk stumbles into a funeral home as a...."
I finish the joke and wait for the payoff. If there was ever anyone in the world who would get that pun and laugh his ass off, FINALLY vindicating my father, it would be the director of an honest to god funeral parlor.
The guy just stared at me.
He even stopped chewing. Just stared at me with a little dribble of mayonnaise escaping one corner of his mouth.
"Um...you know...'beer', like 'bier', the thing the casket rests on...?"
He started chewing again. "Oh. Right. Bier."
That was it. No chuckle, no guffaw. Not even a smile.
I went back to the grill, threw on a couple of cheeseburgers for some iron workers who'd just gotten off third shift and were already 5/6 the way through a 6-pack each, and decided to never mention the joke again.
Until now. So do me a favor, willya? Laugh a little - just a little - as if you understood and found it worthy. My dad's a really nice guy, it's the least you could do for him.
Well, I think I'm gonna go have a beer. No, a "beer". Do I have to explain that one to you...?
