Three Mom Jokes for Mother's Day

Sometimes they didn't totally make sense.

A cat up a tree. (Photo by Noel Wangler on Unsplash.)

My late mother, Bunny, had a habit of telling jokes that I just didn’t understand. I’m recalling them with fondness on the first Mother’s Day I’m spending without her.

Mom Joke No. 1:

This is the first joke I can remember my mom telling me:

Q. Who chases cats up trees?

A. Mrs. Katz.

Note: Okay, a couple of things. First: I realize, of course, that this “joke” only works orally, if it works at all. Second is that, as a little kid, I didn’t know about the convention of referring to husbands by only their last names (“Katz”), but to their wives by appending a “Mrs.” (“Mrs. Katz”). So this whole joke threw me for a loop each time my mom told it — and I’d spend many hours afterwards trying to figure it out.

Not everyone appreciated Einstein’s train of thought.

Mom Joke No. 2:

Two old Jews are riding on a subway train.

One says to the other, “Did you hear about Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?”

The other says, “No — what’s it say?”

“It says that right now, if I throw a ball to you at the same speed and direction as this train, then, according to Einstein’s theory, relative to the train, the ball hasn’t moved at all.”

For a few minutes, the second man is silent as he considers this. Finally he goes, “So from this he makes a living?”

Note: Yeah, that’s the whole joke. I like it a lot now, actually.

Not scary.

Mom Joke No. 3:

A young boy is terrified of cheese blintzes. Every time his mother makes them, he goes, “Aaagh, cheese blintzes!”

The mother decides that maybe if she shows her son how cheese blintzes are made, step by step, he won’t be frightened of them anymore.

“So look, Billy,” she says, “I’m starting with some eggs. You’re not afraid of eggs, are you?”

“No,” says Billy.

“I’m adding water, milk, flour, a little salt. All good?”

“All good,” says the boy.

“Now I’m putting butter in a frying pan, adding the batter.”

“Okay.”

Once the mother is done making the outer wrapper for the blintzes, she goes on to mix together the filling: ricotta cheese, melted butter, egg yolk, vanilla, sugar. As she adds each ingredient, she checks with Billy to make sure he hasn’t become agitated. He assures her that he’s fine.

Finally, she folds up the blintzes. The boy is quiet until she folds down the very last corner — at which point, he yells, “Aaagh, cheese blintzes!”

Note: Years ago, long before my mom got Alzheimer’s, I was trying to tell this joke to some friends. No one got it — and in truth, I wasn’t sure I did either. So I emailed my mom, thinking maybe I’d misremembered it. In her reply, she confirmed that I’d gotten it right. “I call it the ‘gestalt’ joke,” she wrote.

Scary!

Happy Mother’s Day, to all who celebrate!!