Colorado: The Worst Joke Ever

(I wrote this punch line yesterday for someone else and decided to reuse it in another joke on my own blog. Later today I will give you another hopefully better joke, or at least a story about how I tried to write a joke. Its almost finished. That's why the title doesn't match the first joke. Its a two-for-one deal. The first joke actually was inspired by donkeys from New Mexico, not Colorado. I have to go fix something first in the cold and the dark. Wish me luck, there is plumbing and electricity involved. I don't own any donkey's so I am not sure if they really talk in English.)

Three donkeys escaped through the fence.
Free at last.
They were proud of themselves.
The one in the middle said, "we should come up with a name for our herd".
The one in front said, "what did you have in mind?"
The middle donkey said, "tres pasture trespassers".
The last donkey said, "that's really stupid"


More later ...

Update: It is now later, here is the second section finally.

Colorado: The Worst Joke Ever

Date: December 21st, 2012

Son Number One and His Wife (SNOHW) had been trapped in the state of Colorado by the winter weather for a couple of days on a ski vacation, but they had finally made it to our town a few minutes before this story began. They were "now" at our place of business downtown, and I was at home unaware that they had arrived in town.

My Son Number Two had come to my house to play on the internet, and I decided to travel with him back downtown after we found out by a phone call that the SNOHW finally arrived from Colorado. Part of their trip had been miserable, they were glad to be "home".

I constantly think about words and patterns. I constantly see single frame cartoons. I asked Son Number Two if he knew what the word 'Colorado' meant. We had spent 8 years doing spelling bee together, from his first grade through eighth. He said that he didn't know Colorado's name derivation, and gave some nonsensical silly reply that I have now forgot. I love his silly sayings. I think I like his silly's more than he likes mine, judging by his reactions of semi-mock disgust. I don't see it as a competition; to me its purely entertainment. Silliness has been our main mode of conversation for more than twenty years as father and son.

Colorado: I told him that the word Colorado means "the color red". [I didn't tell him that it came from the Spanish explorers as a description of the area, I believe its a reference to the color of some of the soil.]

In motion: the car turns left and heads up a slight incline going west on 3rd Street. There ahead of us just as I was eXplaining Colorado, two blocks away there are red lights just starting to flash. -RED- The railroad crossing guard arms are swinging down to block the traffic as a train is approaching, with 4 to 5 red lights on each arm, two traffic lanes wide. -TRAPPED-

My son complains and continues on to the stopping point at the RR crossing.

Suddenly I make a word-visual connection and tell my son these words: "you know how SNOHW were trapped IN Colorado, well, now we are now trapped by COLORADO, 'color red oh', these red lights while we are on our way to see SNOHW who just escaped from COLORADO!"

Son Number Two replied, "That is the worst joke ever!"

I countered, "No its not! That really cool, how I ..."

Son interrupted, "No, thats a really dumb joke!"

I continued, "... used the 'color red' from both situations, and the being trapped."

We continued to dis-cuss this for the rest of the trip.

But we first had to wait several minutes (5), for the eXtremely long train. It consisted of only four locomotives and no cars! It stopped right in front of us neatly exactly blocking the entire four lanes of traffic.

The train system is eXtremely rude and annoying in our city. They constantly rearrange their loads in the middle of our town, even during rush hour when people are trying to go home.

My son said, "This train is really stupid"

I agreed.

I offered to throw a Molotov Cocktail at the train to get their attention, but he said I probably shouldn't do that. I told him I wasn't going to light it, just throw it. His reply was, what good would that do. I don't remember my answer mainly because it wasn't very cunning or brilliant.

Train: It resumed motion, BUT it went right back in the direction it had come from! This caused my son to groan even louder.

Eventually we made it downtown to our destination to chat with SNOHW. While both sons were in the same room I asked Son Number One about my Colorado joke, and I think I eventually got an overall vote of no confidence, it was a bad joke. He didn't eXpress that it was necessarily the worst joke ever, though. I wasn't sure if he thought it was really a bad joke, or if he was teaming up against me, because he had an interesting quirky smile on his face.

I would have published this story sooner but Son Number Two came in my bedroom complaining about "where is my breakfast?" with eXtremely fake belligerent almost crying. I tried eXplaining to him I was busy trying to get his Colorado story finished but he kept interrupting jokingly about how it wasn't getting him fed NOW and how he owns the rights to this story and he is pretending to attack me with a robotic arm we use for picking things off the floor, like laundry. Children. I even tried eXplaining how this story might make me famous and possibly richer, and then there would be slightly more money for him to inherit, but no, he wanted breakfast, NOW!!! Children.