American Joke

A man brings his wife to the doctor since she's been acting kind of funny. The doctor takes blood, and tells the husband to come back the next day for the results. When he comes back, alone this time, the doctor says,

"It's very serious...but we have to do further tests before we can determine what it is for sure."

The husband is really worried, "what's wrong with her?" he asks.
"Well, all we know is that either she has AIDS or she has Alzheimer's disease."

"Oh my god! What can I do?"

"Well," says the doctor, "there's not much you can do...all I can do is give you some advice until the other tests come in..."

"Anything you say doc...what?"

"Well, what I would do is take your wife in the car...drive her out of town, and drop her off...if she comes home, for God's sake, don't fuck her."

I heard this joke in summer 1995 from a production designer named Dean Tavoularis. I was working for him on a movie called JACK, which was being shot in Marin County. Dean is what you would call a curmudgeon. He is always grumpy, but often funny, although his sense of humor is very dark and dry, as this joke shows. He is sixty three years old and comes from a Greek family, although he has lived most of his life in the United States. He is a very well known production designer (the one who designs the sets) who has worked on nearly all of Francis Ford Coppola's films. He is also known for being very difficult to work with because of his brutal temper.

My job was to drive him around on whatever errands he had to do, and although we didn't talk that much, he knew of my affinity for dirty jokes, and he told me this one day in the car along with the other AIDS/Alzheimer's joke in this collection.

The joke is funny because of its total lack of sensitivity for those who are suffering of these terrible diseases. As we have learned in this class though, people come up with jokes like this one precisely in order to deal with things they don't want to face. But before analyzing the joke, let me explain why it is funny for those who weren't able to get it:

Alzheimer's is a disease that causes loss of memory. AIDS is a fatal sexually transmitted disease. The doctor tells the poor husband that he should drop off his wife far from home in order to test if she remembers her way home. If she does, it means that she does not have Alzheimer's, and therefore she must have AIDS. If that's the case, he should not have sex with her, unless he wants to get the disease himself.

Again, the joke provides an escape from the dreadfulness of these two contemporary diseases. It makes us laugh at the plight of a man who basically has no hope for his wife, both diseases being equally hopeless.

This joke should only be told to people one knows appreciate black humor. Many would just think you need your head examined and might stop being your friend if your not careful who you tell it to.

(This joke has a variant also included in this collection).

Informant Data:

Myself, 22

Italian American Student

Italian, English, Spanish, French

Berkeley, California

November 23, 1997