The Story of Jonah (part 3)

This blog is a continuation of the story of Jonah. To fully understand what is happening go and read The Story of Jonah part 1 and 2. I will continue to tell the story in my own words.

Then Jonah walks into an open mike café where people take the stage and start tellin jokes and everything. One middle-aged guy walks up to the microphone and starts rattling off one-liners. The dude says, “Two guys are in a drug store looking at a display rack of condoms. They both see a box with twelve packs in it. The single guy thinks to himself ‘I hope it lasts the weekend, I got a party to go to.’ The married guy looks at the same pack and says ‘I hope I finish the box before it expires in three years.’ The married men in the crowd start laughin. The comic wanna be continues, “ There are two type of guys who never have sex, married men and monks and I’m not so sure about the monks.” Now the married men are really startin to get into it. The comic continues, “An eight year old walks up to his father and says, ‘Dad can you tell me about the birds and the bees?’ “His father says, ‘How would I know? your mother and I have been married for twelve years.’ ‘Ask your uncle he’s divorced.’ Now the men are howling.

He continues, “Years ago I wise man told me the truth about married people and sex he said to me ‘Frank, this is how things work in the real world. ‘If you put a gumball in a gumball machine every time you have sex after you are married and take a gumball out of the machine every time you have sex after your kids are born you will spend the rest of your life finishing up the gumballs.’ Then the comic says, “It’s a good thing I don’t like gumballs.” The married men are in stitches. One guy in the front has laughed so hard he begins having chest pains and paramedic start tending to him. The comic sees he has them and goes in for the kill, metaphorically speaking of course. “What do you call a married man who sends his wife flowers?” The crowd silences waiting for the punch line. “A poor investor.” More howls. In fact some married men in the crowd try to persuade the comic to run for office.

The comic says to the single guys, “Boys you better take my advice. “When you are on a date with a new girl you need to bring up the conversation of children at just the right time, after the main entrée and before desert. “Ask her how she feels about children. “If she says ‘I love kids’ then tell her you will call her a cab. “However, if she turns very angry and begins using expletives that you haven’t heard since you were in the navy then you have two choices; one, immediately fall on your knees and propose or two, get out of the way because if you don’t you will be trampled to death by every other man in the place who has more sense then you.” With that line one of the paramedics (the married one) now starts laughing so hard he begins experiencing chest pains and his partner starts tending to him.

Now they are done. The married men in the audience are on the floor with tears flowing out of their eyes. The single men have a forlorn look on their faces. One single guy says to his fiancé, “Maybe we need to talk.” Several women begin throwing things at the stage and a near riot begins to break out. One married woman looks at her hysterical husband and says, “I am never gonna speak to you again.” To which her husband says, “Can I get that in writing?”

The police are notified and several squad cars and a paddy wagon arrive. A number of married women are hitting their husbands over the head with whatever they could find. As the police enter the building some of the single cops try to separate the wives from their husbands in a vain attempt to save the husbands lives. The married cops don’t bother because they know from experience that the husbands will eventually go home and their wives will finish the job there.

There was near pandemonium in the place and Jonah, somewhat bemused by what he just witnessed, realized there was little difference between the married men of Nineveh and the married men of Hebrew land. Now he understood why the Ninevites were always going off to war. Jonah figured it was better for Ninevite men to fight in a far off land than in their own homes. But he had an idea, which he figured might actually work. Jonah figured since the Ninevites in this place were completely preoccupied with their own self destruction he may actually have an opportunity to tell them about God’s immediate plans for them.

So he goes up to the stage and grabs the microphone and calls for their attention. The crowd, somewhat startled by the guy with a foreign accent and fishy look, begin to calm down and listen to Jonah.


To be continued…