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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Would you get this joke?

78 replies

DottyDotDot81 · 30/08/2019 19:31

“I’ve just been on a once in a lifetime holiday ... never again!”

I made a twat of myself asking where they went 😞

OP posts:
Saddler · 30/08/2019 22:12

Of course surely it's obvious and immediately understandable

SweetNorthernRose · 30/08/2019 22:15

I don't get that people don't get it...Confused

Ohyesiam · 30/08/2019 22:16

It might be a joke, but it’s not funny.
It’s a groan dad joke.

Don’t feel bad op.

Al2O3 · 30/08/2019 22:17

I invented it. I was 8 at the time.

WeShouldOpenABar · 30/08/2019 22:22

Loved the taskmaster where they made only Tim make an outfit out of stationery and have everyone else guess what pun he would make because it was inevitable

june2007 · 30/08/2019 22:31

An oldy but a goody.

TheNumberfaker · 30/08/2019 22:31

I saw Tim Vine live 20 odd years ago. It was a mix of groans and belly laughs but if you’re expecting to be rapidly bombarded with jokes (his style) you get it quickly.

64sNewName · 30/08/2019 22:31

A possibly crucial thing being lost when you read it is that “never again!” is a play on words so it’s said in the kind of tone you might use to mean “and I’m never doing that again because it was awful.”

So it’s not just someone re-emphasising in a neutral way that they will never be going on that type of holiday again. (If that even makes sense)

winewolfhowls · 30/08/2019 23:07

Actually I WAS hoping this was going to be a boswell incident. I must be a sick sick woman.

foodloves · 30/08/2019 23:17

I don't get it either. Maybe all the people that do could explain?

I get that it's once in a lifetime so they won't do it again, but I don't know why OP thinks they made a twat of themselves by asking where they went

HobbyIsCodeForDogging · 30/08/2019 23:24

Because asking where they went makes it look like the OP completely missed the point and didn't realise it was a joke. It would be like asking if the chicken managed to cross the road safely.

foodloves · 30/08/2019 23:25

So they didn't go on holiday?

I thought they had been and the 'of a lifetime, not going back' was the joke part.

I must be stupid.

areukiddingme · 30/08/2019 23:26

How can you not “get it”

Lifecraft · 30/08/2019 23:27

It's not really a Tim Vine gag, he's just altered it from a gag that was around when I was a kid.

I had to go to the dentist to have all my teeth out.....never again.

foodloves · 30/08/2019 23:31

@areukiddingme

Possibly the delivery?

I don't know really. I just can't see what's funny about pretending you went on holiday. I do see that 'a holiday of a lifetime, not going there again' is funny, but it would have to be either in context of someone who had actually been somewhere, or well delivered.

ArianaCandelabra · 30/08/2019 23:32

It all depends on the delivery OP - if you didn't get it it's probably because they fluffed it!

foodloves · 30/08/2019 23:32

Yes I just reread the OP. I do think it's the writing that has lost the joke tbh. In the middle of a stand up routine I don't think I would question that.

ArianaCandelabra · 30/08/2019 23:33

Sorry, just saw it was written down. Still don't think you're a dickhead. Everyone misses a joke here and there! It's very normal.

Rivkka · 30/08/2019 23:45

No idea about the Lourdes one.

SmellbowSpaceBowl · 31/08/2019 00:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CopperTrolley · 31/08/2019 00:22

I wouldn’t have got it either.

Anyone feel like explaining the joke posted by @RelaisBlu upthread? I don’t get that one either.

64sNewName · 31/08/2019 00:26

I just can't see what's funny about pretending you went on holiday

They aren’t pretending they went on holiday, though - they’re just telling a joke. (I don’t mean that in an arsey way btw, but you know what I mean hopefully - so many one-liners rely on a sort of “I did X ...” set-up structure, but that doesn’t mean the person telling the joke is actually pretending they did that thing, or that that is supposed to be the funny bit.)

The joke lies is in the way the expression “Never again!” interplays with the expression “once in a lifetime”. Holidays only come into it because “a once in a lifetime holiday” is a widely familiar concept.

This may not be much help to anyone who doesn’t get it, but just attempting to explain a joke in writing is an interesting challenge. Harder than I thought it would be Grin

Mookie81 · 31/08/2019 00:51

The OP isn't foolish but some of the people on here...Hmm

EerieSilence · 31/08/2019 03:00

It’s like some of my favourite jokes from my childhood:
An elephant and a frog are getting married. The priest asks: Do you, elephant, marry this frog? Yes, I do, answers the elephant in a booming voice.
And you frog, do you marry this elephant? The frog croaks: Well, I’m already pregnant anyway.

Or: Two snakes are slithering through the desert. Mum, are we poisonous?, asks the smaller one?
Why are you asking, sweetie?, asks the bigger one.
Because I just accidentally bit my tongue.

Go ahead and judge me.

HobbyIsCodeForDogging · 31/08/2019 08:41

That snake one is quite funny 😁

The Lourdes one I presume depends on having some knowledge about apparitions of the Virgin Mary or something - which I don't, so it doesn't really work as a joke for me.

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