Chime Jokes

Back in the 1970s on the classic TV game show “Match Game,” host Gene Rayburn would read a question that began “Dumb Dora is so dumb...” – and the studio audience would immediately chime in: “How dumb is she?”

Well, I work for a woman named D. And D is so dumb...okay, it’s your cue to chime in: “How dumb is she?”

This is how dumb. For the newsletter where I toil, I had to write about a none-too-special PR campaign involving a well-known apparel distributor that worked with a constellation of sweatshops spread across the so-called developing world. (Side note: just when is the developing world actually going to develop?) Anyway, I needed a headline to justify the story of how this company mended its way (sorry for the pun) and made its sweatshops a lot nicer.

So I came up with the headline “As Ye Sew...” – an obvious spin on the expression “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” Now I thought that was nice, but D was totally confused and more...

It is said: "A thief is a person of low position, but he can outwit a man of noble character." In the Shuifu Temple of my county, there was a big hanging bell. Once some countrymen from Baling came down the river and moored their boat nearby. They wanted to steal the bell with which to cast farming tools. Between them they removed the bell from the belfry and lowered it onto the ground. Having stuffed the bell with mud, they smashed it into pieces and carried the fragments away with shoulder poles. Not a sound was heard by the villagers in the neighborhood. Again I heard of a thief who broke into a house in broad daylight and stole a chime stone. * When he stepped out the door into the street, he fell in with the master of the house coming home. "Grandpa," the thief greeted him and asked, " do you want to buy a chime stone?" "No, thanks," replied the old man, " I already have one at home." Thereupon, the thief walked off with what he more...