Heard the one about the three holes in the ground?

The company I work for, SSP America, manages restaurants at airports. They hired me as a host/cashier in November 2015. I was looking for work that would keep me on my feet all day, and thus reduce my risk of cardiac disease. They were having a cattle call at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and they were looking for dependable, trainable, honest human beings who would agree to work for the pay they offered.

Five years later I have said hello and goodbye to thousands of people I have never met, and the comfort that comes with experience has made me less of an introvert and more of an empath. Sizing people up in terms of what they hope to get out of the restaurant experience we offer is a learned skill, and I am learning.

And one thing I’ve learned is that there is one innocent joke I can tell that is so simple and so harmless and so stupid that if told with just a half-dash of slyness will give most people a boost. I learned it in the summer of 1965, yet none of the hundreds I’ve told it to had ever heard it.

Did you hear the one about the three holes in the ground?

No?

Well, well, well.