Another offering from the Archer family treasury of bad jokes…

Pepe and the Fire at the Barn

The Johnsons lived out in the country on a small farm. They had many animals on their place, but none as special as Pepe. Pepe was a chihuahua. And Pepe could talk.

Not just Lassie-style communication or a Scooby-dooish speech. Pepe could talk like you or me. Sure, he made a grammatical error or two, but his syntax was much better than Yoda’s.

Bobby Daniels was the Johnsons’ hired man. He had quite a temper and a bit of a mean streak, but he was always good to Pepe.

One day, Bobby and Mr. Johnson had a fierce argument. Bobby got mad and quit. That didn’t settle the score for him, however, so he came back and set the barn on fire.

Pepe woke up and smelled the smoke. “Fire, fire!” he screamed, at the top of his little lungs. Though his speech was impressive, it was far from loud, so no one heard little Pepe’s cries. The barn burned to the ground that night.

When the Johnsons’ got up the next morning, they found the smoldering ruins of their barn. “Pepe, what happened?” they asked. “Who did this?”

Poor little Pepe could barely talk after all that screaming. And he certainly didn’t want to see his friend Bobby get in trouble. All he would croak out was: “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything.”

Mr. Johnson knew that Pepe was holding out. He became so angry that he hit the dog again and again. Still Pepe wouldn’t give up his friend. He finally tired of the abuse and ran away into the woods, never to return.

MORAL: You can beat a hoarse chihuahua, but you can’t make him fink.