For Thanksgiving, the All-American Holiday, we turned to Readers Digest, the All-American magazette, for our jokes this month. Dig in, and if you want seconds you can have more at the Readers Digest website, RD.com.
Horn of Plenty When a music student brought his French horn to my shop for repair, he complained that the instrument “felt stuffy” and he couldn’t blow air through it. It’s not unusual to find partial blockages in brass instruments if small items get lodged in the tubing, but when I tested the instrument, the horn was completely blocked. After much probing and prodding, a small tangerine dropped out of the bell.
“Oh,” said the musician when I handed him the fruit. Seeing the bewildered look on my face, he explained, “My mom used the horn for a cornucopia in a Thanksgiving centerpiece.”
Holiday Heavyweights The checkout clerk at the supermarket was unusually cheerful even though it was near closing time. “You must have picked up a ton of groceries today,” a customer said to the checker. “How can you stay so pleasant?”
“We can all count our blessings,” the clerk replied. “The hardest part of this job is the turkeys and the watermelons. I just thank God that Thanksgiving doesn’t come in July.”
The Turkey Wishbone My grandfather always had the knack of saying the right thing. One Thanksgiving we explained to my younger brother the custom of breaking the turkey wishbone. Eager to have his wish come true, little Philip was bitterly disappointed when he saw that he held the small end of the bone, while his grandfather had the larger part.
“That’s all right, my boy,” said his smiling grandfather. “My wish was that you would get yours.”
Guest Relations Our eldest daughter, Ann, invited her college roommate to join our large family for Thanksgiving dinner. As families sometimes do, we got into a lively argument over a trivial subject until we remembered we had a guest in our midst. There was an immediate, embarrassed silence.
“Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “I was brought up in a family too.”
Tollbooth Timer I worked on a toll road, answering the phone, collecting money and issuing toll tickets. One Thanksgiving Day, a woman called to ask about road conditions on the turnpike. After I said everything was A-okay, she told me a friend was coming for dinner. Then came the stumper. “If my friend just left from exit twelve,” she asked, “what time should I put the turkey in?”
“Where’s Aunt Florence?” After Thanksgiving dinner, the adults gathered in the living room to exchange reminiscences, while the children went into the family room to play. Suddenly our hostess noticed that an elderly relative was missing. “Where’s Aunt Florence?” she asked.
From across the room came a masculine drawl, “Oh, she’s with the kids, bridging the generation gap.”
