BEDA Day 12: Out of the mouths of kindergarteners

Some of my kindergarteners at work have really gotten into knock-knock jokes, one format in particular. The one version that gets told over and over is "Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "Interrupting cow." "Interrupting cow wh--?" "MOO!" Riley, Gabriel, and Jayden have taken to modifying this to any interrupting animal or other being that suits their fancy. I did NOT appreciate Riley's version from earlier in the week, when I was sitting next to him at lunch and he was eating Cheetos, of course leaving his fingers coated in a thick film of orange "cheez" dust. This was the first time I'd encountered the new obsession, so I didn't know what I was getting into. Riley looked at me and said, "Miss Madeline, knock-knock!" I said, "Who's there?" He said, "Interrupting orange spider." I said, "Interrupting orange--?" And he proceeded to grab my face with his sticky, orange fingers. Oh, the joys of working with children.

Other versions of this joke were much more amusing yesterday at the pool. It was only about 80 degrees out, so the water was pretty chilly and we had a number of kids sitting on their towels near my co-worker Mel and me. Gabriel told the cow joke about five times and then moved on to other ideas: an interrupting cat who said "meow;" an interrupting bird who screeched; an interrupting apple who crunch-crunched; and my favorite, an interrupting old man who yelled, "I'M TIRED!" Jayden got out of the pool after a bit and joined in the jokes with gusto, although he was mostly repeating ones Gabriel had already said, since he doesn't quite have the grasp of linguistics that Gabriel has so far. Mel and I tried hard to remember some good jokes, knock-knock or otherwise, from when we were kids, but we could only think of a few, which made me sad. Ahh, to be young again...