LJ Idol, Season 9 - Week 1 - Hedgehog Jokes and a Collieflower
title: Hedgehog Jokes and a Collieflower
topic: Jayus (from Indonesian, meaning a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh.)
Daniel is sitting in his tiny office, trying to ignore the other grad student currently sharing it so he can get some work done, when his phone suddenly announces "And now, for something completely different", which means Nash must have changed all his ringtones again. He sighs and answers it.
"Why did you put Monty Python on my phone?"
"How did you know it was me?" Nash asks on the other end. "You already had Monty Python on your phone."
"I'm psychic. And I didn't."
"That must've been Neil, then. What are you doing? We're taking a quick break and there's no smoking in this place." He sounds personally offended, as if the conference center put up all those "no smoking" signs just to spite him. Daniel is pretty sure the next words out of his mouth are going to be about how his hotel room is non-smoking too.
"Did you present your paper yet?" he asks, to head off another complaint at the pass. Daniel has never known anyone to complain about smoking vs non-smoking facilities as much as Nash does.
"Tomorrow. There's an absolutely stunning Russian mathematician here who tells very strange jokes. You're the linguist, maybe they'll make sense to you."
"I'm listening."
"There was a hedgehog who learned how to breathe out of his ass, but when he sat down, he suffocated."
Daniel waits.
"That's it," Nash tells him. "That's the whole joke."
"Oh. How is that funny?"
"I think it's funnier in Russian." Daniel can almost hear Nash shrug. "I texted Valery and he laughed."
Stands to reason, Daniel thinks. Valery is from Kiev.
"There was another one with a hedgehog army, but you have to watch it being told for the full effect. It was funny in an absurd Dadaist kind of way, although that could've just been the gorgeous woman pretending to be a hedgehog."
"Have you tried to sleep with her yet?" Daniel asks.
"I have not," Nash says loftily. "She's married, for one thing. When I told her I was here to present a paper on chaos theory with Hugo Martinez, her response was 'Fucking physicists'. Evidently all the physicists she's known are crazy partiers. They drink her under the table. And she's Russian, Daniel. They know from drinking."
Daniel sneaks a look at his office mate, a terminally stressed fellow linguist named Eda Leonova, and lets Nash's stereotype slide. Daniel doesn't think Eda has ever drunk anything stronger than an espresso.
"Hugo's waving at me," Nash says. "I think our pee break is over. There are a couple of interesting papers being presented now so we're going to split up and compare notes later. They're recording our presentation tomorrow. Don't let me forget to inflict that on you. Tell Megan and Neil I said hi." And he hangs up.
Ten minutes later Daniel's phone squeaks, which is an unfamiliar alert but at least it's not Monty Python again, and he checks it to find a message from Nash:
Have a collieflower.
Attached is a photo of a collie wearing a look of bliss and with its face half-buried in a carpet of little white flowers. Daniel grins and texts him back:
That's a terrible pun. Aren't you supposed to be at a presentation?
Two minutes later he gets a response:
What lies on the ocean floor and twitches?
What? Daniel texts back.
A nervous wreck.
Daniel snickers. That's a good one. He emails the collieflower to Eda because if nothing else, she should be able to appreciate the dog's blissed-out expression. And puns are good for one's sanity. Even the bad ones.
note: collieflower.
topic: Jayus (from Indonesian, meaning a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh.)
Daniel is sitting in his tiny office, trying to ignore the other grad student currently sharing it so he can get some work done, when his phone suddenly announces "And now, for something completely different", which means Nash must have changed all his ringtones again. He sighs and answers it.
"Why did you put Monty Python on my phone?"
"How did you know it was me?" Nash asks on the other end. "You already had Monty Python on your phone."
"I'm psychic. And I didn't."
"That must've been Neil, then. What are you doing? We're taking a quick break and there's no smoking in this place." He sounds personally offended, as if the conference center put up all those "no smoking" signs just to spite him. Daniel is pretty sure the next words out of his mouth are going to be about how his hotel room is non-smoking too.
"Did you present your paper yet?" he asks, to head off another complaint at the pass. Daniel has never known anyone to complain about smoking vs non-smoking facilities as much as Nash does.
"Tomorrow. There's an absolutely stunning Russian mathematician here who tells very strange jokes. You're the linguist, maybe they'll make sense to you."
"I'm listening."
"There was a hedgehog who learned how to breathe out of his ass, but when he sat down, he suffocated."
Daniel waits.
"That's it," Nash tells him. "That's the whole joke."
"Oh. How is that funny?"
"I think it's funnier in Russian." Daniel can almost hear Nash shrug. "I texted Valery and he laughed."
Stands to reason, Daniel thinks. Valery is from Kiev.
"There was another one with a hedgehog army, but you have to watch it being told for the full effect. It was funny in an absurd Dadaist kind of way, although that could've just been the gorgeous woman pretending to be a hedgehog."
"Have you tried to sleep with her yet?" Daniel asks.
"I have not," Nash says loftily. "She's married, for one thing. When I told her I was here to present a paper on chaos theory with Hugo Martinez, her response was 'Fucking physicists'. Evidently all the physicists she's known are crazy partiers. They drink her under the table. And she's Russian, Daniel. They know from drinking."
Daniel sneaks a look at his office mate, a terminally stressed fellow linguist named Eda Leonova, and lets Nash's stereotype slide. Daniel doesn't think Eda has ever drunk anything stronger than an espresso.
"Hugo's waving at me," Nash says. "I think our pee break is over. There are a couple of interesting papers being presented now so we're going to split up and compare notes later. They're recording our presentation tomorrow. Don't let me forget to inflict that on you. Tell Megan and Neil I said hi." And he hangs up.
Ten minutes later Daniel's phone squeaks, which is an unfamiliar alert but at least it's not Monty Python again, and he checks it to find a message from Nash:
Have a collieflower.
Attached is a photo of a collie wearing a look of bliss and with its face half-buried in a carpet of little white flowers. Daniel grins and texts him back:
That's a terrible pun. Aren't you supposed to be at a presentation?
Two minutes later he gets a response:
What lies on the ocean floor and twitches?
What? Daniel texts back.
A nervous wreck.
Daniel snickers. That's a good one. He emails the collieflower to Eda because if nothing else, she should be able to appreciate the dog's blissed-out expression. And puns are good for one's sanity. Even the bad ones.
note: collieflower.