joke

[eirias]

Kind of a black-humor joke, found in Nicholas Kristof's blog:

An 80-year-old Arab-American man lives close to New York City and would love to plant potatoes in his garden, but he is alone, old and weak. His only son is working in Paris, so the old man sends him an e-mail and explains the problem. The following day, the old man receives a response e-mail from his son: "My beloved father, please don't touch the garden. It's there that I have hidden 'THE THING.' Love, Ahmad.” At 4pm the US Army, the Marines, the FBI and the CIA visit the house of the old man, take the whole garden apart, search every inch, but can't find anything. Disappointed, they apologize and leave the house. The next day, the old man receives another e-mail from his son: "My beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes. That's all I could do for you from here on such short notice. Love, Ahmad."

Comments

[thekat03.livejournal.com]

oh my... though i suppose that's a relatively good use of the system. d:

[littlepurple.livejournal.com]

I laughed!
i appreciate that on both the brown person level and the wanting to grow potatoes level.

[leora.livejournal.com]

That's am old joke redressed in the current nationality of choice to make it most topical. It's probably been attributed to some Caucasian groups (Italians and possibly Irish) and a few other minorites such as Hispanics and Blacks. But it's a good, fun joke about using people's prejudice against them. Especially in this version. In most versions the son is in jail and writing letters.

[cognative.livejournal.com]

I know nothing of growing potatoes. So I only appreciate this on the brown person level.

Re: HAH!

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Pure snark! Snark, thankfully, knows no ethnicity :).

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I can help you grow potatoes!

Also, growing potatoes will make you more brown. ;)

Re: HAH!

[eirias.livejournal.com]

You'd have a hell of a time making sense of cognative, that's for sure. :>

Re: HAH!

[cos]

You could appreciate it on the civil libertarian level, I suppose