Knock Knock...

We are rife with jokes at our house lately. After about eleventy-hundred re-tellings of that great knock knock classic about the banana and the orange, we were all getting a little weary.

Don't know that joke? Here it is:

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who? (sighing)

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana WHO? (with much impatience)

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say banana again?

Ba-dum-bump.

Daughter manages this joke very well, and she will even explain to you that you have to "say the banana three times" before you get to the orange. Even so, the cuteness of a three-year-old perfectly delivering a knock knock joke, even a long one, is in direct inverse proportion to the number of times one has heard said knock knock joke.

In other words: enough already with the banana and the orange.

We tried to interest her in some of other other knock knock jokes we can remember. Son thinks some of them are pretty funny. But Daughter is still too literal minded, still not linguistically advanced enough to comprehend fully the point of a pun. In short, she's mastered the knock knock form, but she doesn't really get how they work.

But, in an effort to assuage our impatience (she's a very thoughtful and sensitive little soul), she's been trying to vary the jokes lately. The first twist on the venerable classic was this:

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Banana are you glad I didn't say orange?

After that was a hit, the Queen of Homemade Knock Knock Jokes was born.

Yesterday in the car we had:

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Tree.
Tree who?
Tree are you glad I didn't say muffin?

As far as I'm concerned, this is a perfect formula for a preschooler joke because a) it doesn't involve underwear, burps, or anything else we adults are also heartily sick of hilarity over; b) it's easy to remember; c) the utter randomness of the noun combinations trotted out for every iteration of this joke make it mildly funny. Much to Daughter's gratification, I giggled at the unexpected combination of trees and muffins, and what could be better than a joke that actually makes your audience laugh?

Of course, the fact remains that she still doesn't get the nuance of comedy. All her brother has to do is look at her and say "underpants" and the two of them fall over laughing. And yet, she occasionally nails the timing or delivers a line that wows me with its comic precision. I know she doesn't know why it is perfection, but I do know she has me in stitches.

Take the other night. I was reading stories at bedtime. I turned the page after the story ended, and there was one more picture. "The End," I said.

"But," said Daughter, "you need to read this part."

"I did," I replied. I ran my fingers under the only two words on the page. "It says, The End," I read carefully.

"No," she insisted, using her own short and still-chubby pointer finger to trace a slow line under the words. She pronounced them as deliberately as I had. "It says Read Again."

I laughed so hard, I almost fell off the bed.

I can't wait to hear what happens when she graduates from knock knock jokes forever.