My one joke

My friend T. lives in Scotland, on the island of Iona, mending book bindings, and if that doesn't sound like one possible perfect life, you are a very difficult person to satisfy (or a non-recluse, which is fair.)

For his fortieth birthday, his partner asked his friends to make videos of ourselves telling our favorite jokes, or jokes that reminded us of T. Then she edited our jokes into a supercut.

Even my stony heart is warmed by observing the way T's silly jokes have stayed with people for more than a decade, continents away. People tell jokes they remember T. telling, or their own silly jokes. Their kids, some of which I know, get involved.

Interrupting Cow shows up many times:

--Knock knock.
--Who's there?
--Interrupting cow.
--Interrupting cow wh--
--MOOO

The joke I told is even older than our friendship. I told it because it's my only joke. It goes back to the prehistory of my consciousness. I learned it from my dad, and while it's not a classic dad joke, it has the vibe. It's also a joke that smells of pine trees and white-gas camp stoves, because it's a joke he told us while we were camping.

I did three takes, and by the third take I think I actually understood how to properly tell this joke I've been reciting to mystified audiences for my entire life.

(I know I split that infinitive, but it had to be done.)

THE JOKE

Guy has a mid-life crisis and decides to go skydiving. He takes some lessons, and then finally it's the day of his big jump. He's up in the plane with the instructor. He's nervous. The instructor says "Look, it's simple. You jump out of the plane, you count to ten, you pull the cord on your parachute, it opens. If for some reason it doesn't open, you pull the other cord, and your emergency chute opens. Piece of cake."

So the guy jumps out of the plane. He counts to ten and he pulls the first cord. Nothing happens. No main chute. He starts to sweat. He pulls the other cord. Nothing happens. No backup chute.

Now he's just plummeting through the sky. He starts to pray, to beg the universe, "please, save me, send me a sign, don't let it end this way."

Suddenly he sees a guy rising off the ground towards him.

So he's falling down, and the guy's rising up, and when they get opposite each other, he shouts, "do you know anything about parachutes?" and the other guy shouts back, "no! Do you know anything about Coleman stoves?"

* * * * * *

I don't remember why I loved this joke, or why I remember it so clearly now. Maybe it was because it was confusing to me as a child. (This huge life-or-death setup for that exchange? What happens to the two people? Clearly they both die immediately after this joke ends. How is that funny?) The joke does have a certain strawberry-on-the-cliff cherish-the-moment absurdity.

If you had one joke to carry with you into the afterlife, what would it be?

{rf}