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Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.
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Jokes.BY ANDY RICHTER- - - - A group of young male lions are lying on a hilltop in the shade of a lone tree. It is a scorching hot day on the savanna, and from far off in the distance a bigger, older male lion comes trotting toward them. As he gets closer, the younger lions can see that he's a mess: his mane is full of burs, he's covered with dirt, there's scratches on his face, and he's panting so much his tongue is practically dragging on the ground. He lies down in the shade next to the other lions, and the younger, smaller lions notice that there's blood around his mouth. He licks his chops, and then says, "One fucking rabbit. Two days hunting, and that's it. And a scrawny, sickly old rabbit at that. I tell you guys, this endless hunt for meat can be a real pain in the ass." The other lions don't say anything; one shifts uncomfortably, one scratches himself, and another just closes his eyes. The old lion notices the silence and looks over at the others. He sees the skin hanging on their ribs and their jutting hip bones. He bites his lower lip and turns away. He looks off in the distance and says, "Ah, what are you gonna do?" - - - - Two porn stars, a man and a woman, are going at it during a shoot. They're doing it doggy style, and the director keeps urging them to do it faster, since they're in sort of a homestretch two-shot. So they're really going at it, and the woman kind of looks over her shoulder at the man and says, "Ooh, you feel so good inside me!" And the man thinks to himself, I choose to believe you. - - - - A salesman is sitting in the reception area of a big corporation, waiting to give a presentation to some of the people there. He is kept waiting almost 40 minutes beyond the time of his appointment, and then he's finally ushered into a conference room. He goes in, and sitting around a big table are two Jews, an African-American woman, and a gay guy of Chinese descent. The salesman goes into his pitch, for software or a phone system or something, and it's pretty evident a couple minutes into it that these four people couldn't care less, especially the younger Jew, who keeps checking his BlackBerry. But he plows through the presentation anyway, and when he finishes, everybody shakes his hand and thanks him. He goes out to his car and starts to drive home. On the road, his cell phone rings and he answers it. It's his wife, and she asks him to pick up a couple of groceries on his way home. He says OK. She says, are you OK? And he says, yeah, I'm fine. She says OK. He hangs up, and this commercial for anti-itch powder comes on the radio, and it's got all these country-sounding old people giving testimonials about how this powder completely improved the quality of their lives. And the salesman starts crying. Big choked sobs. He shades his eyes with his left hand so that the other drivers can't see that he's crying and says, "And I don't even fucking care about this shit!" - - - - Two light bulbs are lying in their cardboard sleeve on a shelf somewhere. The first light bulb is a real nervous type. He's been going on and on. "What if I don't light up? Seriously, what if I don't? I will just fucking die! God, I'm freaking out. And thanks to our fucking packaging, we don't know whether we're in a store or a warehouse, or if we're sitting under someone's kitchen sink moments away from being screwed in and turned on. What if there's something wrong with my filament? I mean, it feels OK to me, but there's not really any way of knowing for sure until I get hit with some current. Sure, I passed the factory test and lit up just fine, but what if ..." The second light bulb has had enough. "Will you shut the fuck up! Just shut up!" There is a long awkward silence. Then the first light bulb says, "Well, what else are we supposed to talk about?" - - - - The guy who betrayed Anne Frank to the Nazis is eating lunch with his wife in an Amsterdam café. They both order the same thing: a cup of tea, soup, and a bowl of oatmeal. So first the waiter brings the tea, and when he's setting it down, the guy and his wife notice that the waiter has his thumbs in the cups. They both kind of shrug and laugh a little, but go ahead and start drinking the tea. Next comes the soup, and once again the waiter has his thumbs hooked over the edge of the bowls so far that they're actually in the soup. This time the guy and his wife are a little more irritated, but they figure what the hell, and go ahead and eat the soup. Then the oatmeal arrives, and sure enough, the waiter's got both thumbs deep into the oatmeal. He sets the bowls down and licks his thumbs clean as he returns to the kitchen. The wife has completely lost her appetite, and just picks at her oatmeal on the opposite side of the bowl from where the waiter had had his thumb. The guy eats as much of the oatmeal as he can, but leaves the area around the hole left by the waiter's thumb untouched. The waiter drops off the check, and the guy leaves some money on the table. The wife does a quick count of the guilders and realizes that her husband is leaving an almost 30 percent tip. "Are you crazy? That waiter was awful! He had his thumbs in every item of food that he brought to the table. And now you're going to reward him with such a handsome tip?" The guy looks at her as he's putting on his hat and says, "Honey, have a heart. I think he's retarded." - - - - A priest has been summoned for a meeting with the archbishop. He's ushered into the archbishop's office, and the archbishop tells him that there's a conference at the Vatican the next week, and that he wants him to go there and represent their archdiocese at the conference. He also tells him that he's going to get to meet the pope. So the priest is very excited and honored, and the next week, he flies to Rome. When he gets there, he goes and rents a car and starts driving to the Vatican. He's driving along a deserted stretch of autostrada when a unicorn comes bounding out of the woods, and—BAM!—the priest smashes his car right into the unicorn. The dazed priest slowly gets out of the mangled Fiat and goes over to where the unicorn's lying. He stands there for a second in disbelief, marveling at the beauty of the dying creature. Then he notices that it seems as if the unicorn is trying to speak, so he gets down and cradles its head in his arms and leans in to listen. The unicorn turns his eyes toward the priest and, with his dying breath, says, "All my life, I never got to do what I wanted." - - - - OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES: - - - - Jokes By Andy RichterExcerpts From Dagwood Bumstead's Intervention By John Moe Some Lists, Grouped Together Effective Application Strategies for Mrs. Schobel's Morning-Recess Dodgeball By Chris Guthrie Explaining Novelty T-shirts to My Mom By Pasha Malla |
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