monday october 27

today i took a plane home from chicago and sat in front of a family whose three sons ranged in age from maybe 8 to 13 or so. one of these kids had a book of animal-themed jokes that he read from during the entire flight, delivering the punch lines to his parents after they attempted to guess the answers (sample question: what do you call it when a giraffe is reading a book? a tall tale). there were whole sections in this book devoted to specific animals, meaning he'd read a dozen consecutive jokes about - for instance - ducks. even as someone who usually appreciates bad puns, this was excruciating, and i had to give up my book and put on headphones after about 20 minutes of it. the kicker came when we were about to land and i heard the kid say, "there's knock-knock jokes in here? c'mooonnnnnn!" as if he was too good for those, but perfectly fine with all the shitty, one-note puns he'd been reading out loud for the last hour and a half.