Guy goes to prison and on his first night, 5 minutes after lights out, he hears some one yell out “Thirty-one!” Followed by laughter. Then another voice yells “twelve!” More laughter. This goes
on for a minutes or so, people yelling out random numbers, followed by people laughing. He
turns to his cellmate and asks what’s going on. “Well,” he replies, “some of us have been in
here long enough, we’ve all heard the same jokes over and over. So rather than waste time telling the jokes, we gave them numbers.”
“Oh, can I try?”
“Sure.”
When the laughter from the last joke died down, the new guy yells out “Forty-two!” …. silence.
Not a single peep of laughter. From the other end, someone yells “Forty-TWO!” And he place rips with laughter.
“What happened? How come no one laughed?”
“Well, it seems some people can tell a joke, others can’t.”