[These were supposed to post last Friday, but due to computer (user) error, they stayed as a draft and were never published. But don’t worry… I’ve rescued them from oblivion.] Continuing to document some of our family’s heritage of jokes, there’s a category that I have to hit on: Aggie jokes. Aggie jokes are a Texas tradition, told at the expense of students of Texas A&M University.

My dad was a passionate Longhorn fan (that’s the University of Texas, should anyone have to ask). When my parents met, they were both school teachers in Seminole, Texas. One evening, my mom had some people, including my dad, over to her house. They were standing around the piano, singing as she played. Someone asked my mom to play the Aggie fight song (or “Coney Island Baby,” I can’t remember which — the tune is the same). When she began to play, my dad left.

Later in life, one of his good friends at church was Ed Huston, a rabid A&M fan. They enjoyed exchanging barbs, and Ed would grin and bear it as my dad told Aggie jokes.

Growing up, all I knew about Aggies was that they were the object of jokes like these:

Did you hear that the A&M cafeteria stopped serving ice? They lost the recipe.

Tragedy struck the A&M campus: the library burned down, burning up all 3 books. And one of them hadn’t been colored in yet.

Did you hear that a tornado struck the A&M campus? It did a million dollars worth of improvements.

Did you hear about the Aggie that thought Johnny Cash was a pay toilet?

The Southwest Conference (hey, I learned these jokes as a kid) was having a science contest sponsored by NASA. The best project would receive full government funding. Texas Tech University presented an amazing project with manned flight to Mars. The University of Texas had an elaborate plan to establish a colony on the moon. The A&M team revealed their dream of flying to the sun. The NASA officials said, “Boys, don’t you realize that the sun is so hot you’d never get within a million miles of it?” One of the Aggies replied, “Hey, no problem. We’re going at night.”

Are you being to see how I became the warped person that I am?

OK, continuing with tradition here in The Kitchen, it’s Bad Joke Friday. Among other things, I’m wanting to record some of the silly humor I grew up with. Today, let’s talk about elephant jokes.

My sisters used to tell elephant jokes. I, being the youngest, laughed heartily. I didn’t understand a one of them.

Now I see why.

Q. How do you get four elephants into a VW bug?*
A. Two in the front, two in the back.

Q. How do you get four giraffes into a VW bug?
A. First you take out the elephants…

Q. How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?
A. There are footprints in the butter. [No, I’m sorry. Age hasn’t helped that one. I still don’t get it.]

Q. How can you tell if there are four elephants in your refrigerator?
A. Their VW bug is parked outside the door.

Q. How many legs do elephants have?
A. Four. Two in the front, two in the back.

Q. What do elephants do at 5 p.m.?
A. They jump out of trees.
Q. Why are pygmies so short?
A. They walk through the jungle at 5 p.m.

Q. What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence?
A. Time to build a new fence.

Q. Why do ducks have flat feet?
A. To stamp out forest fires.
Q. Why do elephants have flat feet?
A. To stamp out flaming ducks.

Q. What is the difference between a dozen eggs and an elephant?
A. If you don’t know, I’m not going to send you to the store for a dozen eggs.

Q. How do you get down from an elephant?
A. You don’t! You get down from a duck.

Had enough? If not, check out the Elephant Joke page on Wikipedia.

*In Argentina, it was a Fiat 600 when they told the jokes

It’s Friday, and no one is in the mood for anything serious. So we’re bar hopping again in The Kitchen:

• A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, “I’ll serve you, but don’t start anything.”
• Bacon and Eggs walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve breakfast.”
• E-flat walks into a bar, The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve minors.”
• A five-dollar bill walks into a bar.The bartender says, “Sorry, this is a singles bar.”
• Two peanuts walk into a bar. One was a salted.
• Thomas Edison walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, “Okay, I’ll serve you a beer, just don’t get any ideas.”
• A dyslexic man walked into a bra.
• A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender says, “We have a drink here named after you.” The grasshopper says, “You have a drink named Bob?”
• A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says: “A beer please, and one for the road.”
• Two guys walked into a bar. The third one ducked.
• A million guys walk in to a Silicon Valley bar. None of them buy anything. The bar is declared a rousing success.
• “We don’t allow faster than light neutrinos in here,” the bartender said. A neutrino walks into a bar.
• Descartes walks into a bar, and the bartender asks “Would you like a beer?” Descartes replies “I think not” and POOF! he vanishes.
• A snake slithers into a bar, and the bartender says, “I’m sorry but I can’t serve you.” “Why not?” asks the snake. The bartender says, “Because you can’t hold your liquor.”
• A rabbi, a priest, and a Lutheran minister walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “Is this some kind of joke?”
• A panda walks into a bar and orders a beer and a hamburger. After he eats he stands up stretches and pulls out a gun shooting everyone in the room but the bartender. The panda puts $20 on the bar and turns to leave. As he walks out the door the bartender asks why the panda shot everyone. The panda tells him to look in the encyclopedia. The bartender looks up panda and he reads “Panda: Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats shoots and leaves.”

It’s Friday… time for a bit of punishment. No full-blown jokes today, just a few bad puns:

When the daycare workers couldn’t get the kids to take their naps, they finally called the police. The children were cited for resisting a rest.

The midget fortune teller wandered off from the circus. The notice went out that there was a small medium at large.

Joan was grateful to the exorcist who had cast the demons out of her. But she balked when he handed her a bill. He offered her a payment plan, but warned her: “Miss three payments and you’ll be repossessed.”

Two thieves fell while climbing through the skylight at the furniture factory. One fell into the upholstery machine and is now fully recovered. The other fell into a vat of glue and is now a hardened criminal.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the boat. Not surprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him… a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.