Better jokes I’ve heard or made

It was All Souls’ Day last Friday and conversations among family and friends sometimes drifted to topics about life and the afterlife. I retold some nice jokes and, even if I had told them to my wife, children, and friends, this would be a good time to save them for posterity. These are some of the better jokes that are printable, and some of them really sounds funnier if told in the local dialect, so my apologies to those who can only understand English. I was in an International Infrastructure Conference in New York, and at a dinner one evening I told these jokes to a multilingual audience of top executives and ministers, so I had to tell it in English and not in Bisaya. It did get a lot of laughs but it really is funnier in the dialect.

Joke #1: When Viagra first came out many years ago, a father of a nurse in the US called his daughter long distance saying: “Inday, kanang Viagra maayo man g’yud kana para nako ug sa mama nimo, palite g’yud ko ug one-year supply.” At that time Viagra was selling at $15 each. The daughter, while earning a respectable income, mentally calculated that a year supply would cost almost $800, so she replied: “Pa, bag-o na nga medicine, maayo siguro diyutay lang akong paliton ug ipadala.”  But he was adamant and angrily replied: “Ah basta, kung buotan kang bata, palite g’yud ko ug one-year supply, upat ka book.”

Joke#2: One day a bus line that was notorious for over speeding drivers had an accident. Two men were killed; the driver and a parish priest of a southern Cebu town. The two of them came up to the Pearly Gates at about the same time, with the bus driver just a little ahead. St. Peter then asks: “Who are you and why are you here?” the bus driver replied, “Ako si Kulas and driver sa bus nga na aksidente ug dinhi man ko gipadala.” St. Peter replies. “O diay, Kulas, busa pagpili sa mga palasyo nga imong nakita ug anha ka mopuyo.” The priest, behind Kulas was listening to all this and was eagerly awaiting his turn. So, he came up to St. Peter and said, “Padre Damaso, Kura Paroko sa Lungsod.” St. Peter looks him up and says: “Padre, kanang mga payag diha sa ubos pagpili ug anha ka mopuyo.” Naturally the priest was dismayed and asks: “St. Peter, ang ingon sa Ginoo nga in my Father’s place there are many mansions, so ngano mang si Kulas sa palasyo ug ako man sa payag?” St. Peter replies: “Padre, hibalo ka everytime magwali ka, ang mga nanimba natulog o manguwa sa simbahan, pero kong si Kulas mag-drive sa bus, ang tanang pasahero nag-ampo.”

Joke #3: “A husband and wife involved in an accident dies one after the other and arrived at the Pearly Gates. He meets St. Peter and asks how to get to heaven. St. Peter replies, “God, is really a loving God and wants everybody to go to heaven, so I will just ask you to spell correctly a simple word and you go to heaven, so spell ‘love’.” He spells love correctly walks through the gates, but St. Peter tells him: “I have an emergency, so take over my place for a few minutes and just asks the next comer to spell a word. Just then his wife comes up the Pearly Gates and asks, “George, why are you already on the other side and how do I get to Heaven?” He replies: “God is a loving God and wants everyone to go to Heaven, so just spell a simple word and you are in.” She says: “So, George what is the word, tell me.” He replies: “isonicotinylhydrazide.”

Joke #4: From a famous comedian:  “I don’t like dying, there is no future in it and nobody has come out alive.”