Thursday, January 21, 2010

What did the chicken tell the doctor?

“Dad?”, she asked while we were driving through some uneventful part of the journey in the morning. Its always fun to have a chat in the morning while I drop her off to her bus stop. You never really know what to expect… a song sometimes, a joke, an incident or a poem… and sometimes we get a moody silence. “yes” “dad, I will ask you a riddle?” “sure”. She and her school friends have gotten into this riddle thing with clever pun built in. a nudge had been provided in the right direction by their reading of the kiddie magazine called hoot. An example of the fare dished out is - what do you call a big mouse? – answer – enormouse. And more stuff there from where it came from. You have to hit the outstretched palm of the riddler to give up and get the answer. So most of the time you don’t win and more importantly you don’t know what to expect.
“Dad, what did the chicken say to the doctor?” errr… ehhhh… hmmm. ‘I give up. Tell me.” “No, you have to guess at least five times before you can give up” “huh”. Not fair… I don’t know shit of this but I know better than to argue. So I blurt out the only thing that comes to my mind “happy birthday?”, “no”, “happy anniversary?”, “no” “happy diwali”, “happy Christmas (sic)”, “happy new year”. “No, give up?” Ya sure… the five choices went off pretty fast eh? “Give up” I say and slap her outstretched hand. “The chicken tells the doctor – I think I have people pox”. Ha ha ha. “Nice one. You learnt it in the bus?” “No, I just thought of it”. “You sure” I thought she was kidding me for sure. “Ya, I was thinking about fever then I thought about chicken pox, then I thought about people pox, and then the riddle”. Hell that was pretty good. My daughter’s first real PJ riddle –

What did the chicken tell the doctor?
Doctor, I think I have people pox

I repeated it for sentimental value. Hehe.
I couldn’t help but get her to call Jasmine and get Jispa to throw the riddle at her, with five trys and et all.

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