Who’s there? Tuba. Tuba who? Tuba toothpaste!

If you lived with me, you would have heard this joke thirty-eight hundred times in the past two weeks. It’s the only joke Nina knows. And she adores it. At least it’s better than the one my brother Josh used to tell when he was a little bit older than Nina is now.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Brown. Brown who? I’m wearing a brown sweater!

Nice. My mom used to always tell us her little brother, Tracy’s, favorite knock-knock joke when he was a small fry. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Kool-aid. Kool-aid who? Kool-aid church!

I love it.

So, Livi and Ava are at that age where corny jokes amuse them. And they like to share them with us. While we’re riding in the van and can’t escape. I borrowed a couple “boredom buster” books from the library for our trip, and hooray–they have corny jokes in them! Like, “What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back?” And, “What time is it when an elephant sits on the fence?”

Or the one that made me laugh today, not because it was funny, but because of Gabe. “Why was six afraid of seven?” Ava asks. “Because eight nine!” Gabe shouts, proud to know the answer. “Because eight nine?” I say. “Because eight nine? Do you perhaps mean, ‘because seven eight nine?’” It’s possible that you had to be there to fully appreciate the humor. It’s also possible that you mightn’t have found it funny even then. Gabe didn’t.

Another joke from my mom’s childhood–Why is a grapefruit? Give up? Because the faster it does, the much. If you don’t get it, it’s okay. It’s un-get-able. I told it to our babysitter, B.J., when I was growing up. She was such a sweet, gullible soul. I pretended that everyone else got it, why couldn’t she? B.J. also believed that I knew a second language. I would just start speaking it out of the blue, and she would beg to know what I was saying, but I wouldn’t tell her. Poor, dear B.J.

Anyway. Do you know Brian Regan? Comedian, hilarious, very dry humor. His first CD starts out with him saying he can tell what everyone’s thinking, “Ya got some jokes? Why don’t you start churnin’ ‘em out, Circus Boy?”

I know you want me to start churnin’ out some jokes, so here are three of my favorites from high school. If I remember correctly, I thought they were funny.

What’s orange and lights up? An electric carrot.

What’s orange and falls off walls? Humpty Pumpkin.

Why did the first monkey fall out of the tree? He was dead. Why did the second monkey fall out of the tree? He was stapled to the first monkey. Why did the third monkey fall out of the tree? Peer pressure.

So, tell me, what was your favorite joke as a kid? And it goes without saying (but I’m apparently saying it anyway), keep ‘em clean.