I was sitting on a panel during a presentation in front of dozens of people. One of the other presenters was talking, and I’d lost the thread for a few seconds when suddenly my brain tuned back in:
“…and we’re partnering with the Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish navies.”
My brain: The Scandinavian navies.
Oh.
OH.
My mouth before my brain realized it was moving: “Did you know their ships all have barcodes on the sides?”
Presenter, completely sincerely: “No, I didn’t know that.”
Me: “Yeah! It’s so they can Scan Da Navy In.”
I was met by silence.
Not groaning. Not laughter.
About EIGHT FULL SECONDS of silence.
Then, from another presenter (a friend of mine) sitting elsewhere on the panel:
“OH MY GOD, YOU’RE SUCH A DORK!”
Then the audience began to realize what they’d just witnessed.
I asked her about it again today because I couldn’t remember exactly what she’d called me. She couldn’t remember either.
What she DID remember was why it took her eight seconds to react: she was genuinely flabbergasted that the setup had appeared organically in a real professional presentation, that I’d recognized it instantly, and that she’d actually watched the whole atrocity happen spontaneously in real time.
She told me that it is the single best real-time dad joke she has ever witnessed in her life.
I have never been prouder of any other dad joke - and there have been MANY.
The bar has been set. Now I know what I have to aspire to.
Magically it opens! Amazed she asks him how he did it... "Easy" he says, "These are my khakis."
The first evening, the ship's captain received the following note from the wife of a very wealthy and influential plantation owner:
Dear Captain,
Thursday will be my daughter's Debutante Ball.
I would like you to send three well-mannered, handsome, unmarried officers in their formal dress uniforms to attend the dance.
They should arrive promptly
at 8:00 PM prepared for an evening of polite Southern conversation.
They should be excellent dancers, as they will be the escorts of lovely refined young ladies.
One last point:
No Jews, please.
In a written message, the captain replied:
'Madam, thank you for your invitation.
In order to present the widest possible knowledge base for polite conversation, I am sending three of my best and most prized officers.
One is a lieutenant commander, and a graduate of Annapolis with an additional Masters degree from MIT in fluid technologies and ship design.
The second is a Lieutenant, one of our helicopter pilots, and a graduate of Northwestern university in Chicago, with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering.
His Masters Degree and PhD In Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering are from Texas Tech University and he is also an astronaut candidate.
Finally, the third officer, also a lieutenant commander, is our ship's doctor, with an undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia and medical degree from the University of North Carolina.
We are very proud of him, as he is also a senior fellow in Trauma Surgery at Bethesda .
Upon reading the letter the woman was quite excited and looked forward to Thursday with pleasure.
Her daughter would be escorted by three handsome naval officers (and the other women in her social circle would be insanely jealous).
At precisely 8:00 PM on Thursday, Melinda's mother heard a polite rap at the door which she opened to find, in full dress uniform three very handsome, smiling black officers.
Her mouth fell open, but pulling herself together, she stammered, 'There must be some mistake.'
'No, Madam,' said the first officer, 'Captain Goldberg never makes mistakes.'
I was incensed!
The calligrapher would rotate his time between practicing his calligraphy and exploring what more Heaven had to offer. At some point, however, he noticed something: no matter where he went, no matter what activity he engaged in, he saw no angels. It was strange, he thought, that everything else he was told about Heaven ended up being true, but angels were such a strong point of emphasis in the scripture! He asked around, and no other resident had seen any angels either.
How could every other aspect of Heaven be real, but not the entities that were supposed to chaperone it? As he pondered, he suddenly heard a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" he asked, somewhat annoyed.
"It is I, God!" said He on the other side.
The calligrapher hurriedly opened the door. "Oh my... You! I'm so sorry! I didn't know."
"It is all right, my son," God said. "I am only here to check on you. I like to meet with all of our new residents after they've settled in!"
"It's an honor, truly!" said the calligrapher. "I'm a huge fan of Your work."
God gave a hearty laugh. "And I, yours! I'm always impressed by the craftsmanship of all My children. You know, they say that when an artist gets entrenched in craft, it is as though they are experiencing a slice of Heaven in that moment."
The man thought for a second. "You know, I'd be inclined to agree!"
"So, I suppose the inverse is true, is it not?" said God. "Doesn't Heaven remind you of the most beautiful scripts you can imagine?"
He hesitated to respond. "I'm not sure about that..."
God looked surprised. "What is wrong, my child?" He asked.
The calligrapher sighed. "Well, Heaven is great and all, but it's sans seraph."
Broommates
Mist.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" - Bill Clinton.
