Two Jokes For Men

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A traveling salesman’s car breaks down on a lonesome rural road. He trudges to a farmhouse and pounds on the door. The farmer answers, irritated. “My car ….” begins the salesman, suddenly weeping. The farmer softens. “I see that you are a man who loves to weep,” says the farmer. “I would like to introduce you to my daughter.” He takes the salesman’s hand and leads him away from the house, out into the dark field. The salesman’s weeping increases in intensity, and the farmer responds by picking the salesman up, carrying him in his strong arms like a small child. The farmer makes no other attempt to soothe or console the weeping salesman, and walks briskly, with great purpose, toward some sort of large farm machinery. It’s a thresher, and its engine is churning but the blades seem stalled, not idling exactly, but jammed, straining. “My thresher ….” stammers the farmer, now weeping directly onto the salesman’s own weeping face. “Mama, I’m caught in the farm machine,” cries a voice from somewhere inside the thresher. “That’s my daughter,” sobs the farmer. “She’s been trapped in there for a month now.”

A traveling salesman’s rental car stalls on a dim country road. He waits in the car with all of the windows rolled down for the wolves to come and finish him. He falls asleep sometime in the night. A wandering farmer wakes him in the morning, waving a photo of a teenage girl in his face. “Have you seen my daughter?” says the farmer. The sleeping salesman wakes slowly and says he’s waiting for the wolves. “I need you to help me find my daughter,” says the farmer, climbing into the backseat of the broken down rental car. “It won’t start,” protests the traveling salesman. “We’ll wait,” whispers the farmer. They spend a full week in the car, sleeping deeply and often. On the seventh morning, the traveling salesman says, “We will starve soon.” The farmer agrees. “There’s only one way out of this mess,” says the farmer, “but you might not like it.” The traveling salesman insists that he’ll do whatever it takes to save their lives. “Okay, then,” says the farmer. “You are my beautiful daughter now. Let’s go back to the farm and have a big supper.” The traveling salesman cries tears of pure joy for the rest of his natural life as a beautiful daughter.