In Chris Weyant’s cartoon, two women are having tea in a living room. Behind the woman who’s speaking is a man in a large bird cage.
Because the man’s confined I thought he might be under house arrest and enduring an uncomfortable alternative to electronic monitoring: “They ran out of ankle bracelets.”
I next assumed that he was a pet: “Oh, you should definitely get one.”
Finally, I made several references to the kinds of birds people typically buy and display at home in a cage:
- “I couldn’t afford anything exotic.”
- “He’s not much to look at, but he has a beautiful singing voice.”
- “He never says anything worth hearing but, yes, he can talk.”
Now let’s see how you did.
Several of you posited that the bird cage was an alternative to a place for both pets and men who get in trouble with their wives:
- “The dog house is occupied.”
- “We don’t have a dog house.”
Many of you assumed the woman who’s speaking is answering the kind of question someone might ask about a caged bird:
- “I’ve trained him not to speak.”
- “Yes, he does talk. That’s the problem.”
- “They can live up to 100 years.”
- “They can live to 70, but I’m very neglectful.”
The next two entries are more complaints than responses:
- “I never would have gotten him if I knew he would live this long.”
- “Everybody says they’re so intelligent, but I don’t see it.”
There were many jokes about cleaning the cage, but these were my favorites:
- “Cleaning the cage is not easy.”
- “I lined it with our prenup.”
There were also a lot of “man cave” entries, but I particularly liked these two because neither wastes a single word:
- “We couldn’t afford a man-cave.”
- “It’s a man cage.”
Here’s the week’s best sex joke: “He’s well hung.”
Here’s the best sick joke: “The hard part was finding a taxidermist who’d do it.”
Here’s the best pun: “His branch closed.”
And here’s the best reference to Maya Angelou’s autobiography: “I know why the caged Burt sings.”
Given the man’s size and weight the bird cage should topple over, but this entry explains why it doesn’t: “The base is bolted to the floor.”
As I did, one of you made a reference to electronic monitoring devices for people under house arrest: “It was that or the ankle bracelet.”
I like all these explanations for why the man is in the cage in the first place:
- “It’s the only way I can keep him from flying south for the winter.”
- “After the bird died I had to do something with the cage.”
- “He demanded his own space.”
- “Bob lost another bet with the parrot.”
- “Otherwise they’d be extinct.”
- “I certainly wasn’t going to have the cat declawed.”
Finally, as a man who hasn’t exercised since the ‘90s, I liked this entry: “He’s getting the same amount of exercise as before.”
There were a lot of really strong entries this week so I’m selecting a winner—“Bob lost another bet with the parrot”—and two runners-up:
- “The hard part was finding a taxidermist who’d do it.”
- “After the bird died I had to do something with the cage.”