to ask for your help solving this impossible riddle/joke

[killingtime9198]

My best friend's family have a family 'joke', which she originally told me about when we were about 12/13. When she originally told me she didn't get the joke either, but then later did manage to work it out. When she first met her now husband he didn't get it, but he later also worked it out. I have never managed to get it, and every now and again I will remember the saga of this joke (this has been going on for about 20 years now), try desperately for a few days to work it out and then forget all about it for months.

Anyway, I wonder if the powers of mumsnet can either locate someone who has heard this 'joke' before, or who can work it out!

The joke is:

'There once was a man called Boswell. For short they called him Bos, and he walked up the post office steps.'

The joke is definitely NOT that there is no joke, and they're all having a laugh at me for trying to work it out - I am 100% confident of this.

I've renamed my goldfish Boswelland (sorry any future child of Whisky2014's, you've been named after a fish).

I feel it works as I don't know if it's a male or female fish (So that part of the riddle works) plus it doesn't matter if Boswelland walks up the post office steps or goes to the library. (Probably wouldn't go either place to be honest. On account of he or she being a fish. Can't read. Or walk.)

I'm embarrassed to be on this thread

😂😂

Exactly daisy! Thats what i said. "There was a man, whose name was boswelland. For(or "4")short, they called him Bosand. He walked up the post office steps"

And yes it might be wrong. But it might be right..either way its still fucking shit.

Is "Boswelland" the name for that space between a seat on the bus and the window?

She said 'I think it's better in person

Because you get to see their reaction...

Puzzled or pretending. Sigh

Truly, a joke with the funny bits taken out.

Great name for a fish :D

But people would laugh as they didn't want to be seen as not getting the joke or because it was delivered so well and then try and figure it out.

After waiting ten years though?

Sorry if this has been said already.

But could Boswell potentially be pronounced ‘Bozzle’??

Which sounds a bit like ‘parcel’??

Realise this is clutching at straws...!

I dont get the fish and chip joke :(
There was no hope of me getting this riddle

I had been thinking of a similar joke I was (repeatedly) told when I was young, @FunkyKingston. Except the one I got told was:

A boy walked into a bakers and asked for a loaf of bread. The baker asked "Do you want brown or white?" The boy said "Doesn't matter, I've got my bike outside."

Was your humorous lad called Andy Boswell 🤔

There once was a man called Boswell.

Limericks?

It's like a limerick, just without the limerick.

Stab her in the eye next time you see her OP. It's one of thosr annoying riddles that makes perfect sense once you know the answer but annoys the fuck out of you until it does.

Ooh VotingFox, we cross posted with our genius. A limerickless limerick, without the wit.

There once was a man called Bos
Who made all of Mumsnet cross
On the Post Office step
He was pushed to his death
And nobody mourned his loss

JaneJeffer yes!!

Lol jane fab!!

Not great rhyming but better than the original joke anyway

I dont get the bread joke either :(

For the record the bread joke (and the fish and chip one) have no meaning. Nothing to get. The joke is people thinking it means something.

Complete rubbish in other words.

intellectually incurious

Oh

Did a quick poster check of OP and can actually see various postings which mean, sadly, the riddle is real

I dont get the fish and chip joke

That's the point, there is no joke to get other than the punchline is a non sequitur and that folk will laugh as they don't want to be seen to have not got the joke. It sounds like a joke with the classic feed line punch line set up through, whereas the Boswell bawbaggery doesn't even function on this level.