A dear friend told me this joke many years ago. I usually forget jokes, but this one has stuck in my head for decades, likely due to its stellar first line.

[Disclaimer: This joke is downright inappropriate. Over its relatively brief span, it manages to cover child molestation, infidelity, and the intentional spreading of infectious diseases. Is it gross? Yes. Does it make light of truly heinous acts? Absolutely. But I don’t care. I still like it. Are you easily offended? Then don’t read this. Click away and save yourself.]

Okay, here it is:

A little boy walks into a whorehouse with a dead frog on a leash.

“Hello, little boy,” the madam says. “May I help you?”

“Yes,” the little boy replies. “I want an hour with your dirtiest whore.”

The madam gives him a strange look. “All right,” she says, “but we do have clean whores here. May I ask why you want a dirty one?”

With a nod, the little boy replies, “From what I’ve heard, dirty whores have lots of diseases. If I have sex with one, then I’ll get all the diseases, and when I go home and have sex with the babysitter, I’ll give her all the diseases. The next time the babysitter has sex with my dad, she’ll give him all the diseases. Then Dad will have sex with Mom and give her all the diseases, and the next time Mom has sex with the postman, she’ll give him all the diseases. AND HE’S THE ONE WHO RAN OVER MY FROG!!”

😁

Back in March, when my sister was in the hospital and the country was shutting down in response to the plague, my parents and I congregated at my sister’s house, fretting about her health, her two little sons, COVID, and the general state of the world. To break the tension, we decided to share jokes, and this one really cracked my parents up. In the face of despair, brash inappropriateness can work wonders. And now that Dad has departed the world, I think back with a smile at how much he appreciated the dead frog joke. The night after he heard it, Mom told him something funny had just happened, and he asked, “Is it as funny as a little boy walking into a whorehouse with a dead frog on a leash?”

[P.S.: If you have a joke of your own that you’d like to share to cut the tension of our current times, please do. It doesn’t even have to be grossly offensive. Also, if you’re a fan of the dead frog theme, here’s an unfortunately true story that you’ll probably like.]