Text Jokes = Different Punchline

Cast of characters:

Nuni, age 27

Akoh, age 60+, aunt of Nuni

One day about two months ago while Nuni was bumming in the house, she decided to share an old text joke with Akoh. She thought that this joke would be especially funny for her aunt because it involved a play of words between Filipino and Fukien Chinese. And because she's a cheapskate, she let Akoh read the text message from her phone instead of sending it to her.

The joke (cannot be translated, sorry):

Question: How do you say, "If this knife won't do, look for another knife," in Chinese?

Answer: CHIQUITO na bo huat, che PAQUITO.

Because of Akoh's bad eyesight, it took some time before she was able to read everything. It also took a few minutes of digesting and explaining and more digesting until she finally got the joke which resulted to quite a long time of steady laughing and thus difficulty in breathing.

Fastforward to yesterday: Because the joke was clearly successful, Nuni, who was in the office, sent Akoh a new text joke.

The joke:

Parrot: panget! Panget! Panget! (ugly! Ugly! Ugly!)

Babae: sige tawagin mo pa kong panget lulutuin kta. (Girl: Call me ugly again and I'll have you for lunch.)

Parrot: psst!

Babae: ano yun? (Girl: what is it?)

Parrot: alam mo na... (you know...)

Nuni imagined what was probably happening at home: Akoh asking Charly, 14, to read the message aloud to her. Wanna-be-actress Charly would have delivered the joke very well. Laughter all around, possibly resulting to difficulty in breathing again.

Instead Nuni got this message: Joni ano yung txt mo sa akin di ko maintindihan. Tawag ka na lang sa landline. (Joni what did you txt me i can't understand. call on the landline.)

Nuni scratched her head and groaned. She then sent this message: Joke lang yun. Joke! Ang hirap mo namang bigyan ng joke. (It was only a joke. A joke! It's hard to send you jokes.)

To which Akoh replied: la ha ha akala ko ano na ang nangyari sayo. (la ha ha i thought something happened to you.)