Good morning, Hank. It's Tuesday
So I need your help with a thing I'm working on. I need to learn some jokes, but not just any jokes.

I like jokes that are funny, obviously, but I also like it when they're just, like, a little bit sad.

To give you an example of the kind of jokes I'm looking for, today I am going to tell you my two favorite jokes. And you may have heard these before, but-- but wait till you hear me do 'em this time.

Okay, so a moth walks into a podiatrist's office and the podiatrist says, "What seems to be the problem, moth?" and the moth says "Ugh, God, doc, if only there were just one problem.

"My father died and I miss him terribly and, worst of all, I'm worried that my uncle killed him AND my mother has taken up with this very same uncle and I don't know what to do, doc! I don't know how to respond to this. I just feel so lost. At this point I genuinely don't know if it's better to be or not to be."

And the podiatrist is like, "Aw man, moth, those are really serious problems and I'm sorry you're going through this but-- but it sounds like you need to see a psychiatrist. I'm a podiatrist. What brought you to my office today?" And the moth says, "Oh, the light was on." [John laughs] It still gets me.

I first heard this joke from Norm MacDonald but its very old. Anyway, what I love about the joke is that I feel all the time like a human being endowed with a soul making at least free will-ish choices all day long, but, in fact, most of the time I am a moth flying toward whatever light I happen to see.

I fly toward the light of money or status or power or rage or whatever, and then, one day, unhappy and confused I look up and I'm, like, "Why am I in a podiatrist's office?"

 And it's only an understanding that my default setting is to fly toward those lights that I can hopefully occasionally make slightly more conscious decisions.

Okay, here's my second favorite joke. A man is visiting his sister, who is a farmer, at her farm one afternoon when the man sees a pig with a wooden leg. And he's like, "Hey, farmer Jane. How did that pig get that wooden leg?"

And then the farmer says, "Oh that pig? That's Bessie. Bessie is an incredible pig! You know, not too long ago we had a wolf come into the pigpen and we thought it was gonna be an absolute bloodbath, but then Bessie charged right at that wolf and scared it off!"

And the man says "So is that how Bessie lost her leg? By attacking that wolf?" And the farmer's like, "Oh, no, but you know, not too long after that the barn caught on fire and we would've never been able to put it out except that Bessie ran to the house and started squealing so loudly that we woke up and she saved countless animals!"

And the brother says, "So Bessie lost her leg telling you about that fire?" And the farmer says, "Oh no, she was fine after that." And the brother says "I'm sorry, how did Bessie lose the leg?" And the farmer says, "Oh, you know, a pig that special you don't eat all at once."

I like that joke because it's about how powerful people often think they are doing others a favor by only eating them slowly.

Like, mostly it's just a good misdirection joke but there's a slight resonance that informs my way of looking at the world. That's my favorite kind of joke.

So the Roman poet Horace once famously wrote that poetry should delight and instruct, and when making art it's easy to focus on one or the other. Delighting or instructing. But my favorite jokes and poems and novels try to do both. They are both delightful and instructive.

So here's my question: Do you know of a joke that both delights and instructs, and, if so, can you leave it in the comments below? I would also take a joke that merely delights because I-- I just need a laugh right now. Hank, I'll see you on Friday.

In case you're wondering what it's like when I'm, like, uh filming but not for the video. It's like this. Sort of, like, mini existential crises washing over me like so many waves. Don't be the farmer who eats the special pig slowly and the normal pigs quickly. That's a bad farmer. Maybe it's a good farmer but... maybe it's the system that's to blame, not the individual farmer. I think, well, I think--  I think we have to share responsibility on that one. I think both the system and the individual choice... just like last week's video about stuffed animals!