The Man with the Perfect Joke

There once was a man

Who told a perfect joke

He ran it over

To the nearest person

He could find

To see if it was as perfect

As he thought it might be

The man who heard the joke

Laughed so hard

He turned into a hedgehog

Because his insides

Rolled in on themselves

And all he could do

Was curl up inside his own laughter

And stay there forever

A hedgehog, the man with the perfect joke said

Amazed that he was right

About this thing he now possessed

A hedgehog is how you know

You’ve told the perfect joke

After that, the man with the perfect joke

Traveled around the country

Telling it to anyone who would listen

Because this was before television

And radio

And other means of communicating

To large masses of people

All at once

Besides, the man with the perfect joke

Wanted to see the expression

Of each and every face

The joke touched

He wanted to hear every giggle

Every guffaw

Every outburst of excited enthusiasm

And not everyone he told the joke to

Turned into hedgehogs

Because each sense of humor

Is slightly different

Finely tuned

Curiously complicated

One woman laughed and then immediately forgave

Everyone who had ever wronged her

Realizing that the funny thing about resentment

Is that it sticks not in your heart

But in your lungs

Like a cold

And it just takes a good joke

To knock it loose

One boy laughed and turned into a man

Because one moment he knew nothing

And the next moment he knew he knew nothing

And that was enough

To make him adult

One old gentleman who heard the joke

Remembered the girl he had loved in high school

Mary Marie McMartin

Because she had made him laugh

The way that perfect joke

Made him laugh

And he traveled to London

Where she was living with her children

And he asked to marry her

Because once you remember what it’s like

To laugh at the perfect joke

It’s all you want to do

For the rest of your life

Now, not everyone who heard the perfect joke

Enjoyed it

I should be honest about that

Because I’m a storyteller

And a story should always be honest

Even if it can’t always be funny

The man with the perfect joke knew this

And he would want me to tell you how it was

When he met people

Who didn’t like his joke

They were people who didn’t want to laugh
Because they were busy with their own sadness

The way the woman with the resentment

Was busy cultivating her ever-simmering fury

The man with the perfect joke

Would tell these sad people his joke

Again and again

Thinking that surely the greatest joke of all time

Could work its way into the souls of these sad salamis

And spin them around

But one of the sad people

Finally put up their hands

And said—

“Please sir,

We appreciate what you’re doing

But giving us a joke

Is like giving a jigsaw puzzle

To a toddler

We’re just not ready for it’

This utterly unraveled the man with the perfect joke

And he walked across the country again

This time without the joke on his mind

Wondering what good he could do

If a perfect joke

Could fail

To make some people happy

Maybe it wasn’t enough

The joke

Laughter

Comedy

Maybe it was too little

Too simple

Too silly

Too surface

When it came to truly helping people

Maybe no joke had

What was—

Required

The man with the perfect joke

Ended up on a bench

Somewhere outside Scoville, Massachusetts

Known today affectionately as Scovie

To those who live there

He sat on the bench

For four days

And four nights
And on the morning of the fifth day

A little girl sat down next to the man

And asked him

If he would like

To hear

A joke

He thought about it

And said—

Yes

Because it occurred to him

That at that moment

He really did

Need to hear a joke

So the little girl

Told him

The worst joke

In the world

A joke so bad

Only someone pure of heart

Could find the worth

In telling it

And that joke was so awful

And so so so so not funny

That it was actually

Quite perfect

And the man with the perfect joke

Laughed

And when he laughed

He didn’t turn into a hedgehog

Or forgive a wrong done to him years ago

He didn’t propose to a lost love

Or reach a new plateau of maturity

He just laughed

And felt better

And thanked the little girl

Who got up

And walked away

Not knowing that she had done the job

She was never hired to do

And from that day on

The man with the perfect joke

Went back to traveling the country
And the world

And beyond

Telling his perfect joke

And one day he told it to me

Along with the story

I’ve just told you

And he asked me

To tell everyone I could

And when I asked him why

He said—

‘Because maybe someone

Needs to hear it’

And I said—

‘Maybe, but—

I’m not sure it’s much of a story’

And the man with the perfect joke said—

‘It might be to somebody

And somebody is the person

That needs to hear it’

So I’ve been telling the story ever since

And now I’m telling it all to you

In case one of you needs to hear it

As for the man with the perfect joke

He came became the Poet Laureate

Of a country, you’ve never heard of

I know it’s unusual for a funny man

To be considered a poet

But what is poetry

If not the thing that reminds us

Not just that we are human

But that we should always aspire

To stay human

And what does that

Better than a joke?

And I always end this story

The way I would end a prayer

Because if prayers are what we give to god

Jokes are prayers we give to each other

So here it goes—

Blessed is forgiveness

May it one day be contagious

Blessed is growing up

May it one day be extinct

Blessed is lost love

May it always wind up found

Blessed are the hedgehogs

May we all spend our lives
Laughing

And blessed are the jokes

And the people who tell them

For they hand out prayers

Like handshakes

Little do they know

What they give might not always be perfect

But it's always
Enough