It was my own joke, but I was reading where people used to swim in the tidal basin in Washington DC.

Coworker goes "really?"

I paused for a second and said "well, you couldn't, but yeah white folk did."

He's black.

A colleague of mine lost a finger a few months earlier while climbing a fence, jumping down and forgetting about his wedding ring. Anyway, we were in a conference call with another office and he jokingly wanted to check the video feed. He asked them: "how many fingers do I hold up?" In that moment I came up with "I'll give you a hint! It's not 10!". It was funny because everyone had forgotten about his finger and only realized after a few secs.

More like when a joke happened to me .... my husband was watching Curb Your Enthusiasm which I never got super into cause it was hard for me to watch Larry David be Larry David. But this one day, I got back from shopping at Costco and went to the kitchen to try and get the ridiculous plastic clam shell packaging off of whatever I bought. I was struggling, trying to cut it, pull it, wouldn't budge. I go into living room and literally Larry David is doing the EXACT SAME THING on the tv, stomping on it etc. My mind was blown and my husband was all, see that's all it takes! One thing like that and you're hooked! I'll always respect that show for making that cosmic thing happen lol.

I was at an Aquabats show and they were about to play The Baker, they were interacting with the crowd about things they love and the crowd responded with each thing “WE LOVE [thing they said]”, then before the song they told us they got the muffins to throw into the crowd from a local place called Dick’s Bakery, there was a moment of silence and I screamed out “I LOVE DICKS!!” And there was an audible giggle from the entire crowd.

I was at a restaurant with my wife's family - lots of kids.

This place was in a fairly rural area and there were chickens pecking around outside.

While eating one of the kids says "A chicken just crossed the road!"

No hesitation at all I yell "WHY?!?"

Driving along the highway, step daughter and friend in the back seat. Friends dad in the passenger seat. Voice from the back says " look the geese are in a V". I ask " Does anyone know why one leg of the V is longer than the other?". No reply, I say " because there's more geese on that side". Dead silence until friends dad busts out laughing, we've been friends ever since.

I was with some friends, talking about TV shows. The guys were saying how good Chernobyl was, but women were saying it's too depressing, and they'd rather watch trash TV like Love Island. So to compromise I said they should make a series called Three Mile Love Island. That might be one of my best jokes ever

Every damn time I speak.

I’m sometimes exhausting…

Many years ago I went to the movies to see a movie, I think it was Season of the witch (although I thought it was way before 2011). There's a scene where someone is trying to do an exorcism and the demon shouts with a very deep voice "SILENCE", and then there are a couple of seconds of silence in which I couldn't resist calling in the correct tone "I kill you".

For those too young or that have already forgotten about it look for Achmed the Dead Terrorist on YouTube.

I have two. The first one I can’t even believe it happened because it feels like bad writing to contrive the perfect circumstances.

I was in a tiny local comedy thing and we did these Weekend Update-style reworkings of local news. Someone was working out a skit that involved a bear and asked if anybody had a bear suit they could borrow. Turns out, they were pretty sure someone else at the comedy theater, a guy named Juan, had one. Someone asked, “Would it fit me?”

I had to say it.

“Guys, Juan size fits all!”

—-

The other was waaaay back, watching The Matrix at the student center in college. It had been out for a while and everybody had already seen it, but getting to rewatch it for a couple bucks on a big screen was worth it even for a poor college student. It comes to the scene where Agent Smith has Morpheus chained up and is interrogating him, then he describes the way humans consume and spread and destroy everything around them. Smith says, “Do you know what else does that?”

I call out from the crowd…

I’m not the kind to talk in movies, but again, I had to say it.

My buddy had gotten some front row seats at a comedy club, and during his set, the comedian says "I just turned 50. Which is concerning because I had a midlife crisis at 25." There was very little reaction from the crowd. As the comic gathered himself to continue to the next bit, I said "OHHH, it's a MATH joke!"

He gave a little chuckle, smiled and said, "yeah, a math joke."

I gave myself a gold star for making the comedian laugh at his own show.

An older co-worker was getting dentures, and had all his teeth pulled in preparation. For a week or two he had been on liquids only. We all sat down at the lunch room table to eat every day as a routine. Most of the company was family so they were all mostly related as brother, sister, etc. So said co-worker proudly exclaims that this will be his first time eating solid foods in weeks. It turned out to be two cans of vienna sausage. So about halfway through the meal he opens up the two cans, and then stares at them. Then he calls out to his brother sitting across the table and lifts the two cans up, and says "What do you make of this?" One can of vienna sausages was visibly lighter than the other can. I immediately interrupted with "That's an easy one." Pointing to one of the cans I continued with "That one is lips, and that one is assholes." We were all rolling on the floor laughing except for denture guy. He was so pissed off he just threw out the two cans and walked out. I have never had another moment like that where the joke just came to me in real time. It was a wonderful moment that I will cherish always.

On a visit in the GDR when it still was real. Me being young and from the West, I tried to tell them a political joke about the GDR. Then they explained to me why the joke doesnt work, and their reality is even worse than my joke.

It was embarrassing, comical, political, all of it... Can't make up such a situation.

(I don't repeat it here, because hardly anybody could understand it anymore today)

I was working at this small tech company in the mid 00's, and the office clown was lightly hazing the new guy by reading sexually explicit facts out loud:

C: Hey, did you know that the first DVDA was attempted in City Name, State on Month Day, Year!?

Me, as Morbo the news monster from Futurama: There were no survivors...

Edit: It was the word "attempted" that did me in. If it had said "performed" or "achieved", my mind wouldn't have gone there ;)

Was playing slo-pitch (beer league rec baseball), pitching. The other team was short one player, so when the missing player came up to bat, there would be an automatic out.

It's bottom of the last inning and we're tied, two outs. Batter in the box and "automatic out" is on deck. My shortstop says: "if you walk this batter, they cannot win." I decline, and throw decent pitches - our thirdbaselady makes a perfect line drive catch to preserve the tie. Walking off the field, I say the the shortstop.

"I couldn't do it. If I walk the batter, then after the game when I go touch myself -- I wouldn't have enjoyed it." The bench dies laughing.