A group of men are shipwrecked on a deserted island. To pass the time, they tell each other jokes. After a year of being stranded, they have all told over all of their jokes so many times, that everyone knows them by heart. So, instead of wasting time telling them, they numbered all the jokes and anyone who wanted to tell a joke would just call out its number.
One day, a man washes up on the shore. He was just shipwrecked and now he is stranded there with all the other men. On his first day, the men are sitting around and someone calls out a joke.
“429!” says one man. The whole group erupts in laughter.
“672!” says someone else. Again, everyone is in stitches.
The new guy doesn’t really understand what is going on but sees this as an oppotunity to bond with the group. He works up some courage and stands up and yells, “243!”. Dead silence. “What’s the matter? How come you all laughed at everyone else’s number but not at mine?”
The man next to him pats him on the shoulder and says, “It’s all in how you tell it.”
<P.S. I know what a pathetic joke this is. I’m hoping that ames will repeat her comment, as I enjoyed it very much. When I tried to post my thanks to her, my post was deleted (seemingly for no reason, maybe it just got lost), so now I’m fishing for another compliment so I can try again.>