Punch Line: Diesel Fitter

I used to go to Mets games. I used to be lucky, in that my father's wife's father had box seats at Shea, about five rows back from the field between home plate and the Mets dugout, but because he lived in Florida, his tickets were frequently up for grabs. I remember once taking the #7 train to Shea with my sister and her friend Adam, while he told a joke. He stretched it out, elaborated it to a fair-thee-well, embellished it with accents, and had the entire packed subway car listening raptly. It's another one of those jokes where, once heard, the punch line lives on - kind of like you can conjure up the whole of The Cutting Edge just by singing out "toe pick".

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Joe and Larry were brothers, who worked together in a bra factory. Work slowed down, and they were both laid off, and so they trotted down to the local unemployment office.

The clerk called Joe into her office and asked him what he did. Joe said "Cup stitcher. I sew two pieces of fabric together to make the cups for the brassieres."

The clerk looked up cup stitcher in the big book of jobs. Finding it classed as unskilled labor, she gave him $300 a week unemployment pay.

Larry then went into the clerk's office. She asked Larry his occupation. Larry told her he was a diesel fitter. The clerk determined that diesel fitter was a skilled job, and awarded him $600 a week.

When Joe found out that Larry was getting twice as much, he was furious. He stormed back in to find out why his brother was collecting double his unemployment pay.

The clerk explained, "When I looked it up, cup stitchers were unskilled laborers and diesel fitters were skilled laborers."

"Skill? What skill?" yelled Joe. "I sew the cups together. Larry puts 'em on his head and says 'Yeah. Dese'll fit 'er.'"