Chapter Six”All the Good Jokes Are Taken
A/N: Much thanks to Andrew for the nerd joke. Luv you always and be missing you in Latin class. Also much thanks to William for the priest-and-rabbi joke: may you always win when you fight with Lydia. Esma and Stella are my OCs. All other characters, situations, etc. are the exclusive property of J.K. Rowling. I’m just inviting them over for playgroup. :)
Somehow (Andie never did manage to figure out how) they all got to Mu Ling, got the food, and got back...in one piece. The drought seemed to have decided it was going to end, because the air was so humid that within five minutes Tonks’ (albeit reluctantly) curly brown hair was frizzing big-time. Ordering took longer than they’d expected, if only because no one could agree on what to order and Andie didn’t want the expense of getting everyone a single dish. The next problem was fortune cookies; they ended up short a couple and Ted had to argue with the chef until they got them.
After a couple of scuffles over who got which chair and who sat where, everyone had somewhere to sit and somewhere to put their food. They were eating in the living room because they didn’t really all fit at the table; Ted usually wasn’t home for dinner. For the first few minutes everyone was too busy eating to talk, but then James and Sirius started telling each other jokes.
“Hey Prongs, how do you make a blonde laugh on Saturday?”
James shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Tell her a joke on Wednesday!” Everyone laughed (and Peter choked on part of an egg roll) except Andie.
“Ahem.” She was looking daggers at Sirius, who was trying to figure out what he’d done.
“I...er...what?” James elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow- Ohhhhhh. Erm, sorry, Andie. I, er, forgot. That is, I didn’t mean...” He broke off halfheartedly.
“So much for ‘having influence with the ladies’,” Remus muttered under his breath, grinning.
James swallowed his mouthful of rice. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” answered Sirius.
“Abyssinia.”
“Abyssinia who?”
“Abyssinia behind bars one of these days!” This brought laughs from everyone, even Sirius, and Andie made it known she was pretty sure James was right about the ‘behind bars’ part. Pretty soon everyone else was chiming in with their own jokes.
“Little Willie was a chemist/” Ted offered, “Little Willie is no more./ For what he thought was H2O/ was H2SO4!”
Nobody laughed at this except Remus. “It’s a nerd joke,” he explained. “You see, H2O is the chemical formula for water, and H2SO4 is the chemical formula for sulfuric acid, which looks like water, but is actually a really strong mineral acid, so...oh, I’ve lost you. Well, I did say it was a nerd joke...”
“I don’t think you’re a nerd,” Tonks said in an injured tone.
“Thanks, but, ah, you just may be going against the general consensus there...not sure, but probably.”
“Define ‘general’,” Sirius said.
“Most of Hogwarts, except you guys and Esma and Lily. Maybe Stella too, I don’t know.”
“And me.”
“And you, yes.”
The silence that followed was soon broken by Sirius. “So these two men walk into a band banquet, right? And then the priest says to the rabbi...’I think we’re in the wrong joke!’ Get it? The wrong joke!” He laughed wildly...but no one else did. “Well...I thought it was funny, anyway.”
“Hey, guys “ so this mushroom walks into a bar,” Remus said. “And the bartender says, ‘Wow, it must be really boring being a mushroom and all.’ And the mushroom says, ‘Not really”I’m actually a fun guy.” Some people laughed. Others didn’t. James didn’t understand until Sirius rolled his eyes and explained, “You get it? Fun guy”fungi?”
“Shouldn’t it be ‘fungus’, though, since it’s just one mushroom?” Ted said interestedly. “I mean, ‘fungi’ is the plural.”
“Yeah, I thought about that,” Remus admitted.
Tonks sighed. “Okay, I was wrong. You are a nerd.”
Remus just laughed (at which Tonks became rather annoyed).
“Well,” she said, “who’s heard the story about the little yellow man...?” A few murmurs of dissent. Andie shook her head and groaned loudly.
“Please. No. Not that one.” Tonks, however, ignored her and plowed on with the joke. (Story? Joke?)
“So there’s this little yellow man, who lives in his little yellow house with his little yellow cat and his little yellow fish. And every morning he wakes up in his little yellow bed, folds back the little yellow coverlet, and dresses in his little yellow suit...”
The little yellow man went on to eat his little yellow breakfast, feed his little yellow pets, and go to work in his little yellow car. He said hello to his little yellow coworkers, went into his little yellow cubicle, and spotted a little yellow button on his little yellow desk with the little yellow papers. The little yellow man didn’t know what the little yellow button did, so he asked his little yellow coworkers. They didn’t know either, and suggested asking his little yellow boss. The boss suggested the little yellow superintendent, who didn’t know either and sent him back to his little yellow cubicle. Feeling dejected, the little yellow man didn’t know what to do until he saw a little yellow ant. It sounded absurd to him, but he’d try anything. He asked the little yellow ant about the little yellow button in his little yellow cubicle on his little yellow desk with his little yellow coffee cup did when you pressed it. The little yellow ant didn’t know...but she did suggest he try asking the little yellow bear, who suggested the little yellow camel, who suggested the little yellow dog, who suggested the little yellow elephant, who suggested the little yellow flamingo, who suggested the little yellow giraffe, who suggested the little yellow hyena, who finally stopped laughing enough to suggest the little yellow ibis, who suggested the little yellow jackal, who suggested the little yellow kangaroo, who suggested the little yellow llama, who suggested the little yellow monkey, who suggested the little yellow narwhal, who suggested the little yellow orangutan, who suggested the little yellow penguin, who suggested the little yellow quail, who suggested the little yellow rhinoceros, who suggested the little yellow snail, who suggested the little yellow turtle, who suggested the little yellow unicorn, who suggested the little yellow vulture, who suggested the little yellow wildebeest, who suggested the little yellow xarlin (“What’s that?” interrupted James. “It’s a very distant and little-known cousin of the marlin. Now shut up and let me finish.”), who suggested the little yellow yak, who suggested the little yellow zebra. When the little yellow man asked the little yellow zebra about the little yellow button in his little yellow cubicle on his little yellow desk with his little yellow coffee cup and his little yellow papers did when you pressed it. The little yellow zebra slowly chewed his little yellow mouthful of little yellow grass, and after carefully swallowing it, politely told the little yellow man that he didn’t know at all and added that little yellow wise gurus were sometimes to be found on top of little yellow snow-covered mountains. The little yellow man was at this point very tired of rushing around all over God’s little yellow green earth, but thanked the little yellow zebra and journeyed up to the little yellow snow-covered mountain, where, to his little yellow surprise, he found a little yellow wise guru.
“Oh, little yellow wise guru,” he said, “Can you tell me what the little yellow button in my little yellow cubicle on my little yellow desk with my little yellow coffee cup and my little yellow papers does when I press it?” The little yellow wise guru said in reply, “Little yellow enlightenment cannot be attained by thinking in little yellow ordinary terms. You must be the little yellow button.” The little yellow man tried and tried, but he couldn’t make himself become the little yellow button. When he failed, the little yellow wise guru shook his little yellow head and directed the little yellow man back down the little yellow snow-covered mountain. The little yellow man was becoming more and more depressed. He drooped his way back to his little yellow office. On the way there, he had to wait at a little yellow crosswalk for the little yellow light to turn green. Standing next to him was a very pretty little yellow woman. The little yellow man somehow got up the courage to ask her about the little yellow button. When he did, she just laughed at him and said, “Little yellow silly, try pressing it!” The little yellow man thanked the little yellow woman and hurried back to his little yellow office. He rushed through the little yellow parking lot, yelled a hello to his little yellow coworkers, and dashed into his little yellow cubicle. He hastily shuffled his little yellow papers and his little yellow coffee cup around until he found the little yellow button. Taking a little yellow deep breath, the little yellow man reached down and pressed the little yellow button...
“And?!” Sirius shouted.
Tonks smiled, almost cruelly. “I’m getting there...I’m getting there...hold your little yellow horses....” She leaned back in her chair a little more, brushed a strand of hair out of her face, and continued. “And the little yellow light came on.”
“That’s it?” James said. “That has got to be the little yellow longest”I mean the longest little yellow”I mean”oh, stuff it, that took forever!!”
“I know.”
“Not only was that the longest joke I’ve ever heard,” interjected Remus, “That’s one of the stupidest. Peter, you tell a joke or something, and mind it’s not as bad as that one.”
“Erm...okay...” Remus got the impression that Peter was doing some very quick thinking. “Er...why did the chicken cross the road?”
“To get to the other side,” Andie said in a bored voice.
“Yeah,” he admitted miserably.
“Wormtail, did you have to tell that joke?” Sirius moaned. “It’s the oldest joke in history.”
“All the good jokes are taken!” Peter protested.
* * * * ~ O ~ * * * *
After everyone had (finally) finished their food, Sirius grabbed the bag of fortune cookies and started randomly tossing them to people. Andie was the first to get hers open.
“’Don’t water the flowers.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it’s going to rain.” James ripped the plastic off his cookie, stuffing it in his mouth and mumbling through the crumbs. “Mm shz, ‘Lrf ‘z shzrt, njey et t’d’f’st.’”
“What?” Tonks said, repulsed. James swallowed.
“Mine says, ‘Life is short”live it to the fullest.’”
Remus snapped his cookie open and pulled out the slip of paper. “’Heads up”the person of your dreams may be closer than you think.’ ...well, I’ve always said these things were rubbish...”
After a few seconds’ scrabbling, Peter got his open too. “’Know where your loyalties lie.’”
“With us, of course,” Sirius said, extracting the wet paper (which he had forgotten to remove from the cookie) from his mouth. “Mine says, ‘Control your impulses.’”
“Yeah, that you need,” teased Tonks. “Listen to this: ‘Friends are one thing you can never have too many of. Make lots and keep them well.’”
“Well, I think you may have gotten the only useful one,” Remus said.
“Tonks, am I your friend?” Sirius said.
“Of course,” Tonks replied...as she shoved him off the couch.
“Duck.” Ted said as he tried to keep his fortune cookie from crumbling into pieces, “That’s all it says... Pretty stupid, isn’t it?” He looked up just in time to avoid a couch pillow from his daughter. “Insubordination, sah! Bad form, bad form...” He picked it up and threw it back at her...but missed and hit Sirius instead. Soon a fully-fledged pillow fight had broken out, which quickly descended into chaos.
Andie considered it a miracle that any of them got to bed before midnight.
The Marauders and Me by Lissa Reynolds
Chapter Notes: After multiple trials and tribulations (an exhausted Andie's words, not mine) everyone is finally sitting in the living room with their food, eating nicely...although with Sirius, James, and Tonks in the picture, who KNOWS how long that's going to last? :)