The Longhandled Spoon

Yesterday in my blog about slop pails I said I might tell you an old joke/story from our mother. It is on the gross-humor side of things. She told it to us when we were kids and, as you know, kids love gross humor. We thought it hugely funny.

Terry, Mother, Michelle, Gracie
c. 1943

So, here it is as I remember it from sixty-odd years ago. (If any of my sisters remember it better, feel free to correct it!)

There was a man who loved his drink. It was his habit to spend most evenings in his favorite bar, coming home late at night much the worse for all he had imbibed. Often, he would have overdone it to the extent that he would end up retching and vomiting before he made it to bed.

His wife endured this behavior night after night. In exasperation, she would tell him, "One of these nights you're going to vomit up your insides!"

There came a night when he arrived home in even worse condition than usual. His stomach heaving, he leaned over the slop pail and vomited. Unbeknownst to him, and unnoticed in his inebriated condition, his wife had cleaned a chicken for tomorrow's dinner before going to bed, leaving the entrails in the slop pail.

The man staggered to bed and gasped to his wife, "You're always warning me I'd vomit up my insides one day and, by gum, you were right. But by the grace of God and a longhandled spoon I got them all in again!"

Well, I warned you!