Holy Leg Humpin’ Jesus, there’s just no pleasing some people! The staff of La Cuadra work our livers out for our readers’ edification, hoping also to bring some laughter to our ever darkening world. It’s a difficult balance to strike – whether we should enlighten or entertain – and sometimes we have to make difficult choices.
So imagine my deflation when I recently bumped into my old friend, Malcolm, whose first words were “the last issue of La Cuadra was all doom and gloom. How’s ’bout a little more levity next time around.”
I tried to explain that it was well leavened doom and gloom, but he was having none of it.
And I suppose he’s right. If you’re gonna have 34 pages of torture, violence, moral turpitude, and tragedy, you should at least throw in a few fart jokes to keep the readers’ smiling.
Well, I haven’t heard any good fart jokes recently, so I’ll have to rely on an old stand by. The Tale of the Talking Dog. This joke, like all classics, is all in the delivery. My guess is Malcolm still won’t like it. Prat.
Guy walks into a bar and orders a shot and a beer. As he’s sitting there he sees a sign taped to the mirror behind the bar that reads: “Talking Dog, $10”
He’s kinda interested (and generally bored) so he asks the bar owner what it’s all about.
The owner says, “Yeah, I got a talking dog. He’s in the back room. You wanna see him?”
Guy says, “Why not.”
“It’s the last door on the left, just past the pool table.”
So, the guy walks back past the pool table, hooks a left and sees a dog dressed in a velure running suit curled up in the corner.
He hesitates a bit, shifts back and forth on his feet, and finally says, “Uh, Hi.”
The dog rolls over, looks up and says, “Hey. What’s doin?”
The guy, shocked says, “Holy Shit! So this is for real. You’re a talking dog.”
The dog distractedly says, “Yup. talkin’ dog.” and he curls back up to sleep.
The guy says, “Wait, sorry to bother you, but, well, I’ve never met a talking dog before. I mean… like… how’d you become a… you know…”
The Talking Dog scratches some fleas and says, “To make a long story short, I’m a military project. I was trained from a pup to be a spy. I was taught basic tradecraft, and of course, how to speak. I picked up the language pretty quickly, top of my class, believe it or not, and worked for 7 years in the Soviet Union, gathering information and then passing it freely across the borders, because, of course, no one ever suspects a dog.”
The dog, misty eyed and reminiscent, looks up at the man and says. “Hey, buddy, do me a favor and crack me one’a them beers.”
The guy looks around, spots the cooler and grabs a Budweiser. He pops it, and holds it out to the dog.
“No thumbs,” says the Talking Dog, and he gestures with his snout towards his bowl.
The guy fills the bowl and waits for the dog to continue.
The dog laps up half the bowl and says, “after the collapse of the USSR, I worked along the fringe in the radical Islamic movement, tracking terrorists, organizing counter insurgency operations. Lots of deep cover work. I tell you, man, I lost some good friends along the way… so much pain… and I started to blank it all out with drugs, snorting heroin mostly. Somewhere in the mid 1990s I hit rock bottom and I just ran. I ran as far as I could, and ended up as part of a traveling circus, entertaining kids and the like. It was good work, but I just couldn’t get off the shit. I could hardly thinks straight and one day I snapped at a kid. The booze, the bad dreams and the guilt were damn near killing me. I really thought about blowing my brains out, but, hey” he lifts up his paws, “… no thumbs.”
“Then one day, this guy shows up. Vietnam Veteran. Maybe he recognizes some of his own life in my eyes, so he takes me home… here, to this bar.”
Guy says, “Wow, that’s one hell of a story.” He excuses himself and heads back to the bar, practically shaking with excitement.
He says to the bar owner, “That’s incredible… He really can talk.”
Bar owner says, “If you want him, it’ll be ten bucks.”
The guy pulls out his wallet and hands the guy two fives, but as he’s doing so he says, “I’ll take him, but I’ve gotta know, why only $10?”
Bar owner says, “He’s a fucking liar. He hasn’t done half of that shit.”
Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week! Try the roast beef!