A man boards a bus to his surprise it is full of users. He finds an empty space and settles in.
He quickly finds out a pattern to the ongoing conversations. One person stands up
and shouts a number – Two hundred and sixty one!! Everyone starts laughing. Another
person stands up as the laughter starts to fade, shouts a number – One thousands
seven hundred and thirty seven – and everybody is laughing again. He is confused.
“Good morning! What is going on here?”, he asks his seat neighbor.
“Well you see”, the neighbor starts after staring at him for a few good seconds, “we
started this bus a few years ago. Initially the commuters had new jokes and we used to
entertain ourselves sharing jokes and laughter in this otherwise mundane bus ride.
Over the years, jokes started repeating, and this one day the driver came up with a
brilliant idea of cataloging the jokes. Now we just tell the number and others recollect the joke and laugh.”
“That does make sense in a weird way”, the man agreed. “Also saves time and energy of joke teller.”
A few stops go by and these jokes are showing no sign of stopping. Suddenly another
number is heard – Seven thousand five hundred and ninety six!! People start laughing.
The man is surprised to notice that his neighbor is laughing the hardest. Even when
everyone has stopped, he is still going on , fighting his tears and trying to stop. Half a
minute later he collects himself , is gasping for breath and tries to sit properly.
“Why laugh so hard sir?”
“Heard that joke for the first time”, he answers.
