Ah, Monday, Monday. Time for another attempt to get some use from this book I composed once upon a time, asking for the punchlines to certain ancient, ancient jokes.
The school year approaches. For many years, my school district observed a sort of gradual re-entry system, starting classes the Wednesday before Labor Day, so kids had a three day week followed by a four day week and THEN got into the Monday through Friday routine. These were, by the by, the folks who provided me with those book order forms every month, where I could buy more and more joke books. Who says you don’t learn anything in school? Herewith, some of the japes I read over and over in those days when we scratched on rock notebooks with our stone pencils.
J1.Miss Sunshine watched her prize pupil stroll into the classroom well after the bell. “Tommy!” she snapped. “You should have been here half an hour ago!”
“Why?” he replied. “( )”
J2.”And yesterday you missed school,” she went on.
Tommy said, “( )”
J3.Jennifer: “Teacher, would you punish someone for something they didn’t do?”
Miss Sunshine: “Certainly not!”
Jennifer: “Good. ( ).”
J4. Miss Sunshine: “Class, we will have only half a day of school this morning.”
Students: “Yay!”
Miss Sunshine: “Quiet please. ( ).”
J5.It was Nathaniel’s first day of Kindergarten, and his mother sent a note with him for the teacher. “Nathaniel is a very sensitive child,” it said. “So if he misbehaves, don’t hit him. ( ).”
J6.”Tommy, you were supposed to draw a picture of a stagecoach. But all I see is a pair of horses.”
“Sure, “ said Tommy, “The horses ( ).”
J7.”Well, now I see the stagecoach, but it doesn’t have any wheels. What’s going to hold it up?”
“( )” said Tommy.
J8.Tommy: “I don’t think Columbus was such a big deal!”
Miss Sunshine: “He discovered America!”
Tommy: “Big deal. ( ).”
J9. Miss Sunshine marched Tommy to the principal’s office. “What now?” sighed the principal.
“I asked him who shot Abraham Lincoln, and he answered ‘Well, I didn’t’,” said the indignant teacher.
The principal fixed a stern gaze on the young man. “Listen to me, and listen well, my boy. ( )!”
J10.Miss Sunshine: “Tommy, where was the Declaration of independence signed?”
Tommy: “( ).”
J11.Miss Sunshine: “Tommy, when was the City of Rome founded?”
Tommy: “( )”
J12:Miss Sunshine: “Tommy, name as many states as you can.”
Tommy: “North Hampshire, New Dakota….”
Miss Sunshine: “The very idea! When I was your age, I could name all the states in alphabetical order!”
Tommy: “Big deal. ( ).”
Classroom comedy, by the way, goes back at LEAST to the days of vaudeville, when young comics (George Jessell, the Marx Brothers) got their break playing students in a classroom, delivering some of these very ANSWERS
A1.What happened?
A2.Not really
A3.I didn’t do my homework.
A4.We will have the other half this afternoon.
A5.Hit the boy next to him. This will impress Nathaniel.
A6.will draw the coach
A7.Outlaws
A8.It’s so big, how could anybody miss it?
A9.If you did it, you admit it right now
A10.At the bottom
A11.I didn’t even know it was losted.
A12.There were only thirteen of them then
Blogsy Babbles 