My father-in-law loved telling jokes. The problem was that he could never tell a joke he’d heard without either laughing so hard he couldn’t finish the joke or messing up the punch line. The way this story was told could easily have happened to him.

A wife asked her husband, “Have you heard the story about the dirty window?”

“No, what is it?”

“Oh, well, you couldn’t see through it anyway.”

The next day the husband thought he would repeat this to a neighbor, so he asked, “Have you heard the story about the window you couldn’t see through?”

“No, replied the neighbor, “How does it go?”

The man responded, “Oh, well, it’s too dirty to tell anyway.”

If you are going to tell jokes you have heard from others, be sure you remember the wording of the punch line. Another time when effective listening is essential!