SCHOOL DAYS : The Attack of the Dumb-Boy Jokes

It’s a year after Anita Hill, the year of the woman. Six women have entered the Senate and 47 have taken seats in the House, and it may be too early to draw sociological importance from this, but my 8-year-old daughter came home from school with this joke:

“There are three boys in the playground. A genie comes down and says, ‘I want to give each of you a wish.’

“The first boy says, ‘I want to be ten times smarter than I am.’ The genie says, ‘Poof! You’re ten times smarter than you were.’

“The second boy says, ‘I want to be a hundred times smarter than I am.’ The genie says, ‘Poof! You’re a hundred times smarter.’

“The third boy says, ‘I want to be a thousand times smarter than I am.’ And, the genie goes, ‘Poof! You’re a girl.’ ”

My 8-year-old collapses on the floor in giggles.

Outside the window, I hear her 6-year-old sister playing skip rope to this rhyme:

Boys are rotten, made out of cotton.

Girls are dandy, made out of candy.

Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider.

Girls go to college to get more knowledge .

It degenerates after that into:

Boys drink whiskey to get more frisky.

Girls drink Pepsi to get more sexy .

The phone rings and it’s my friend, Kate Wolf, a sixth-grader, telling me another joke:

“How come all blond jokes are one-liners?”

“So boys can remember them.”

And then there’s an old standard that can be sung by either gender about the other. In my house it goes:

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Throw the boys overboard,

and listen to them scream.

I have to go. I have to find my 3-year-old son a tutor. I just asked him what color my blue jeans are and he said, “Orange.”