A man spends his first night in prison…
Right after lights out, he is surprised to hear someone yell “42!”, after which the entire
cell block erupts in laughter.
Soon after, another inmate yells “17!”, and again there’s uproarious laughter and applause.
He asks his cellmate to explain. His cellmate tells him that all the inmates have been
there forever, and they all know the cell block’s jokes so well that there’s no need to
tell the whole joke. Just the number suffices, and they have about 100.
“Ooh, ooh, I wanna try it”, says the new inmate. “What’s a good one?”
“I’d go with 70”, says his cellmate. “That one never fails to get a rise out of people.”
So the man yells “70!” with all his heart and soul, but nothing. No response. Not a
peep from any other prisoner.
“What happened?” asked the man?
The cellmate shook his head regretfully, and said “I’m sorry, but you told it wrong.”
