It's been 10 years. It was exactly a decade that I've been waiting in anticipation for the punch line of this joke.
I was 14 years old. My grandpa Bob would have been 64, though he would tell everyone he was only 63 at the time. He's now 74 but would tell you he's 73. In 2001 we were travelling by car to Seattle, where my mom's sister lives with her husband and two children. There is a lot of time to kill on this trip.
At some point my Grandpa began telling my sister, 16, and me about his time working between university semesters in northern Ontario. The story involved him and his boss Gus in a diner.
Gus would do something to the waitress, he told us. Then he stopped telling the story, saying he couldn't continue because of our age and untainted innocence. We bugged him. We nagged him the rest of the trip, and continued to nag for the next several years.
Our continued inquiries, at times coming a couple of years apart, were always fruitless. Even when I was 20 and she was 22, he shook his head with a grin on his face. We're too young. We can't handle the truth.
Well last week, when my sister and I were home, sitting on his deck with a couple of drinks, she brought it up again. After pouring himself another glass of wine, he told us.
Finally, after 10 years.
Here are some of the things that have happened in the time we've been waiting to hear the completion of this joke.
First, the joke was initiated in a pre-9/11 world. Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan began and ended within that time.
The identity of Deep Throat was revealed.
There was no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg was only 17. There was no iPod; the first one came out in the fall of 2001.
Four new countries have been established.
The joke started seven years before the Great Recession, which hit the fan in 2008.
There have been serious natural disasters in Indonesia, Haiti, Louisiana and India.
Both SARS and H1N1 have become well-known medical terms to the general public in this time.
There have been five Olympic Games held. The world record for the 100-metre sprint has gone from 9.79 to 9.58.
The first Harry Potter movie hadn't been released yet. They just released the eighth and final one a couple weeks before we heard the end of the joke.
I first heard the joke when the Dead Sea was just sick.
I don't know if it was his master plan to tantalize us for an entire decade as some sort of sick joke of his, to keep us on the edge of our seat for 10 years waiting on this punch line, but he couldn't pay off 10 years of anticipation.
It was funny. It was a "groaner," as my grandma put it. It was something I'd expect out the mouth of Bob Saget.
Unfortunately for the readers, I can't divulge the punch line in the space provided here due to its graphic, and perhaps inappropriate, nature. Besides, it wouldn't be fair if I had to wait 10 years and then just blabbed it out loud right here. You'll have to wait. Hopefully not 10 years though.
If you really want to hear the joke, e-mail me at jbaker@estevanmercury.ca.
