Title: Blind Golfers
General Information about Item:
- Joke
- English
- United States
Informant Data:
- Rafael Rosas is a Dartmouth ’20 studying engineering. He’s a 19 year old from San Diego, California.
Contextual Data:
- Social Context
- This would be shared in a light-hearted humorous setting among peers. Its humor is a bit darker than the other jokes (the lack of compassion for the firemen) so it may be less likely to be shared among peers who do not know each other well.
- Cultural Context
- Similar to the “Glass Half Full” joke, this joke derives its humor from the disparity between emotionally-driven thinking and logically-driven thinking. The priest and doctor are included as two people who are stereotypically compassionate. Their fields both concern helping improve the well-being of others. And so in a very empathetic situation, both the doctor and the priest express compassion and understanding for the blind firemen. The engineer though, in a show of callousness that is humorous in how cold a response it is.
Item:
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes.” The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf.” The priest said, “Here comes the greenkeeper. Let’s have a word with him.”
The priest said, “Hello George, what’s wrong with the group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?.” The greenkeeper replied, “Oh yes, thats a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year so we always let them play for free at any time.”
The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.,” The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m gonna contact my optomologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.” The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”
Transcript:
- Chrissy: Could you state your name and background?
- Rafa: My name is Rafa, I’m a 20, and I’m a mechanical engineering major.
- Chrissy: And, could you tell me what the joke is?
- Rafa: The joke is kind of long. A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes.” The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf.” The priest said “Here comes the greenkeeper. Let’s have a word with him.” The priest said, “Hello George, what’s wrong with the group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?.” The greenkeeper replied, “Oh yes, thats a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year so we always let them play for free at any time.” The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.,” The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m gonna contact my optomologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.” The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”
- Chrissy: Alright, do you remember when you first heard the joke?
- Rafa: Uh… I don’t know, it was a weird late night study session where you get distracted at like 3 am, start doodling weird things.”
- Chrissy: And can you give an explanation of what makes the joke funny from an engineering standpoint?
- Rafa: Yeah, so, what I–what I think makes the joke funny is that it’s very explicit about the fact that engineers are just looking for practical solutions. So the doctor is like “Oh my god, we need to fix their sight.” And the priest is like “Let’s pray for them.” But the engineer is like “I wanna play golf, and they’re in the way. If they’re blind, why don’t they play at night?”
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Collector’s Name: Christina Long
Tags/Keywords:
- Joke. Engineering. Golf. Firemen.