So Monday was Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of summer. The official beginning of summer isn’t for another month. Father Time has taken the habit of running late in his old age. Or Memorial Day rudely arrives to the party super early. However you want to look at it.

Anyway, since we talked a lot about stories this week (the story’s coming, the story’s here, here’s a completely different and unwanted story), we decided we’d let you all have a turn. And we’re gonna have a Memorial Day theme.

Tell us a story about summers.

That’s it. Just tell us a story about summers: last summer, this upcoming summer, summers of yore, summers of my, whatever summer you want. Here’s ours:

Once upon a time there was a man. And he was cool. And he hosted a television show with Gak. Then he went to the Food Network. He’s significantly less cool now.

Yes, that story was about Mark Summers. Yes, that has nothing to do with Memorial Day, as it turns out. But that’s not the point. The point? Tell us a story. In the comments of course.

When I ask people, “How are you?”, sometimes I get the response, “I can’t complain.” I like to respond to this by saying, “Well, then you’re not trying hard enough.”

You want a story? Okay. Here’s one:

Once upon a time there was a guy. And his name was … Jim. And he … had … … arms. Two of them. And he had legs. … Also two of them. And then one day … he walked somewhere … on those legs, of course. And clapped. The end.

I’m not very good at coming up with stories on the spot.

(But stories about super heroes and toxic pizza are one of the things that the Pake Shlake Band does best.)

“Um, so we save the pizza?” Mike asked.

“Yes,” Johnny replied.

“And we don’t eat it?”

“Right.”

“And we don’t throw it away?”

“Correct.”

“And we eat it later?”

“Yes. Wait, no! Well, yes I guess. But much later. When we know what it does.”

“OK, ” Mike said. “But what about the unfinished pieces?”

“Throw those out,” Johnny said, putting them in the empty pizza box.

“You want to take out the trash? It’s raining.”

“I’ll time you,” Johnny offered.

“Johnny, how old do you think I am? 8?”

“On your mark, get set, GO!”

Mike grabbed the pizza box and ran out the door, almost instantaneously he was back.

“Whoa, that was fast.”

“Did I break my record?”

“Um, yeah, maybe we have more powers than we thought.”

And less trivial ones, too.

“Did the narrator just knock our powers?” Mike asked.

“Sounded like it.” Johnny said. The narrator smirked, knowing that the two could not come up with a clever retort as the chapter was over.

Hello, again.

As you know, we at the Pake Shlake Band do not approve of working over the weekend. In fact, we do not approve of working at all, but especially not on the weekend, and especially not long weekends. What is the point of a long weekend if you have to work during it? Then they might as well call it a long workend. But, fortunately, they don’t, so we don’t. Work on weekends, that is.

As a few of you noticed, we may or may not have forgotten to put up a Story Time last week. And, seeing as yesterday was a Monday that was part of a long weekend, it seemed like you might have to miss out on the next chapter of the story for two weeks in a row. But, we felt this would not be fair. An injustice, so to speak. So, in order to prevent that injustice, we are having a rare Tuesday showing of our Story Time. We know, it’s hard to believe, but to ensure we provide you with quality humor, we at the Pake Shlake Band will do whatever it takes. Well, except work on weekends.

Last weekend was the Preakness, and Big Brown was indeed victorious. (No, we aren’t bitter that Tres Borrachos didn’t win…It’s not like we put big bucks on him or anything.) But as for the winner of last week’s Game Time, we have to give it to Max. (But I mean, come on! He should change his name to Doce Borrachos, so then his number will match where he finishes in races!) A few weeks ago Max nominated Big Brown as a silly horse name. And since our question was which of the horse names from that contest would win the Preakness, it turns out Max’s did. So, even though he did not play this week, he wins.

Anyway, earlier this week, Johnny told us that jokes are overrated (and that Story Time is easy to forget about.) So, in our never-ending mission to make life more jovial, we are trying to un-overrate jokes, with your help.

Think of a better punchline to the following joke.

How does the prisoner call home?

The real answer is: With his cell phone.

Our new answer: With the one phone call he can make before being thrown in jail.

What is your answer?

When you are hungry, your stomach growls. I have a theory that, long ago, all our body parts growled for attention. For example, if you leg itched, it would start growling. That is how you would know to scratch it. But, when we invented movie theaters, it became difficult to hear the movie because of all the growling, so humans evolved to have our body parts not growl anymore. But, our stomach was too stubborn to evolve, so it still growls.

I didn’t say it was a good theory.

What do you think would happen if Tiger Woods met a tiger in the woods? Would he go, “Hey! We got the same name!” or would he run away very frightened?

You know the game Rock, Paper, Scissors? I still don’t understand why rock can’t beat paper. It’s a rock! Just throw it at the paper!

Who wants a joke? You do!

How does the prisoner call home?
With his CELL PHONE!

Hahahaha. Get it? Cell?

Jokes are overrated.