A guy robs a bank and gets sentenced to prison for life. On his first day in prison. he sits down to lunch, terrified.
No one’s saying anything. You could cut the silence with a knife. Then suddenly a biker-looking guy at his table
stands up and shouts “FORTY EIGHT” and the entire lunchroom bursts into uproarious laughter.
The next day it’s a hard looking guy with a shaved head who stands up.
“EIGHTY NINE!” and everyone is rolling on the floor.
Every day it’s like this. Tense silence. Then someone shouts a number and the laughter.
Well one day his curiosity overcomes his fear, and the guy turns to the old-timer to his right and asks
“what’s the deal with the numbers?”
The old-timer sizes him up, then replies: “well you see there’s only one joke book in the prison library,
and we all been in here so long we know every joke in that book by heart.”
“So when someone calls out sixty five we know it’s the one about the nun with the pickle, and nintey seven’s
the one with the priest, the rabbi, and the three Swedish girls. We all know the joke so we don’t need to
say the whole thing. We just say the number and everyone gets it.”
So the next chance he gets the guy makes his way to the prison library, and finds the joke book. Sure enough, it’s got numbers next to every joke.
He flips through the worn pages until he finds a good one about a pickle farmer, his daughter, and his prize pig on their way to church.
Chuckling to himself he memorizes the number: twenty eight. All he’s gotta do is say the number.
The next day, the familiar tense silence falls over the lunchroom and he senses that this is his moment.
He stands up, squeaking his chair, and six hundred eyes turn to stare at the new guy.
“Ahem,” he starts, nervously, “twenty –uhh — TWENTY EIGHT!”
Silence. Not a single laugh.
After a few seconds, everyone starts eating again.
He sits down, his face flushing beet red, and turns desperately to old-timer. “What did I do wrong? Did I pick the wrong one?”
“Nah, that one’s hilarious.” says the old-timer, “it’s just some guys can’t tell a joke.”