The Stand-Up Raisin
Flyers were all over town. They were stapled to telephone poles, buildings, exhaust pipes, even people. The signs were written in a large, purple font that was actually larger than the paper. This is plausible.
This is what the signs said:
COME TO THE CHUCKLES COMEDY CLUB TONIGHT TO SEE THE FUNNIEST COMEDIAN OF ALL TIME!!! BRING MEDICAL SUPPLIES, BECAUSE YOU'RE LIABLE TO LAUGH SO HARD, YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS WILL STOP WORKING!!! MUST BE 18.7 OR OLDER!!!
As days went by, the townspeople grew increasingly excited, despite the fact that they were all illiterate and none of them could read the signs. They followed the arrows on the signs, however, and on the night of the comedian's debut, they all showed up at the Chuckles Comedy Club.
They sat in chairs.
Excitement filled the room like excitement.
A man said to his wife, "I wonder if this comedian is as funny as he's rumored to be."
"Yes," said his wife.
5 minutes passed.
The man repeated to his wife, "I wonder if this comedian is as funny as he's rumored to be."
"Yes," repeated his wife.
The man and his wife had an arrangement, you see. They repeated conversations whenever there was a silence. That way, they'd still be interacting, but without the bothersome hassle of trying to come up with new things to say. On their first date, they simply introduced themselves to each other repeatedly for hours. And hours.
Anyway, suspense continued to build as the husband and wife repeated their conversation. Finally, the curtain rose, to reveal a single raisin sitting on stage.
Everyone in the building burst out laughing simultaneously.
The raisin did nothing, it just sat there. But the laughter filled the room, and years of anguish were lifted from the faces of the audience members as the hilarity of the raisin overwhelmed them and filled them with a soul-cleansing joy. The laughter continued for roughly an hour non-stop. Grown men were rolling on the floor, tears of laughter pouring down their cheeks. Lifelong enemies were embracing each other as they laughed. The raisin sat.
Then, the curtain was closed again, and the laughing died down. Then, there was a standing ovation for the raisin.
This began the days of fame for the stand up raisin.
The stand up raisin.
The raisin was taken on a tour across America. His manager would bring him out on a stage and place him there, and everyone looking at the raisin would instantly burst in to hysterics. Journalists called the raisin "The most brilliant stand-up comedian to ever exist." Audience members called the raisin "HILARIOUS!!!" The raisin's manager called it "A really convenient way of making money."
I caught up with the manager and asked him how he discovered the raisin.
"Well," said his manager, "I was looking for a new act to sponsor. I was at a grocery store, considering making a banana the star of a musical. But then I saw a box of raisins. Most of them were only marginally amusing, but one of them stood out. The instant I looked at it, I couldn't stop myself from laughing. I knew I'd found the next big comedian. So I offered the raisin a contract."
And it paid off for the manager. He's now one of the wealthiest people in the world. This means he has a lot of money. Money is paper with pictures of old men on it.
The raisin has now made appearances on many daytime talk shows. He is famous worldwide.
Everyone loves the raisin.
Until, one tragic day, when the raisin was found dead in his luxury apartment.
An examination of his corpse proved that he died of syphilus.
The day of the raisin's death was declared a worldwide day of mourning, and a statue was built in the raisin's memory. It's quite a beautiful statue, if you can ignore how much it resembles a turd.
The raisin itself was taken to a medical lab where tearful doctors performed an autopsy. They were very delicate when they sliced the raisin open with a chainsaw. Inside, they found a rolled up peice of paper.
The peice of paper said one thing.
Is comedy still funny if you leave it in the sun?
The world paused to consider this.