Jack Ziegler updated a German fairy tale by turning Rapunzel’s tower into an apartment building. She’s leaning out a fourth story window and letting her long hair cascade down to the sidewalk below, where a man is standing in front of the building’s entrance and shouting up to her.
My first several captions identify easier ways of getting to the fourth floor than climbing someone’s hair:
- “Just buzz me in.”
- “Just toss me the keys.”
- “Just let down your key.”
- “Buzz me in so I can climb thy actual stairs.”
Those last two captions allude to an actual line from the fairy tale—Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair! So, that I may climb thy golden stair—and may therefore be better than the first two.
I live not far from a community of Orthodox Jews where the women all wear wigs. From what I understand they pay a lot for lustrous, natural hair, so I thought of these captions:
- “I represent a group of very interested Orthodox women.”
- “My clients are a group of Orthodox women. Name your price.”
In the summer of 1984 I held two jobs, each for just one day: asbestos remover, and lifeguard at an indoor pool. I remember the head lifeguard telling me how important it was to make sure that anyone with long hair wore a swim cap so their hair wouldn’t clog the bottom drain, and that memory led to these captions:
- “And don’t go in the pool without a cap.”
- “And stay away from the rooftop pool.”
Finally, I imagined the man returning from the store with disappointing news: “Sorry. They don’t sell conditioner by the gallon.”
Now let’s see how you did.
The following caption is identical to one of my own—“Just buzz me in”—and there were many variations on that joke:
- “Could you just buzz me in?”
- “Just throw me the keys.”
- “Don’t tell me the elevator is out of order again.”
- “I’ll just take the stairs.”
- “Now let down your key.”
- “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, just buzz me in.”
The following “long hair clogging the drain” captions are all better than my own:
- “I’m here to fix the clog.”
- “Did you call about the clogged drain?”
- “I’m here about the clogged drain.”
- “What seems to be the problem with your drain?”
- “Do you know which apartment called about the clogged drain?”
And here are a few decent sex jokes:
- “By the time I get in, you always have a headache.”
- “Next time I’m hiding in the closet if your husband comes home.”
- “My wife found one of your hairs on my gloves, jacket, pants and shoes.”
There were several good puns playing on the double meaning of the word “locks:”
- “I’m the building manager. I heard you’re having trouble with your locks.”
- “I said the keys, not the locks!”
- “I see that the locks have been changed.”
- “Did you change the locks?”
I don’t usually like captions based on the idea that someone has misunderstood what the other person said, but this is a not bad example of such an entry: “I said, ‘Throw down your spare!’”
Here are several good Rapunzel jokes that lose points only because they don’t really address the apartment building setting:
- “I meant you should have more fun.”
- “I’d rather avoid entanglements.”
- “But you shave your legs, right?”
- “I prefer it up.”
- “I liked it better up!”
Like many of this week’s entries, that last caption includes an exclamation point—something to which I usually object. But because the man is clearly shouting up to the woman four stories above him, it’s appropriate.
Here’s a pretty terrific lawyer joke acknowledging the fact that a process server need only touch the defendant with a summons: “You’ve been served.”
Finally, we have two similar captions explaining why the woman’s hair is so long:
- “Have you been waiting long?”
- “Been waiting long?”
That second caption is substantively identical to but shorter than the first and therefore better, but it’s not the best of this week’s twenty-eight finalists. That honor goes to: “Now let down your key.”