This month we were joined by cartoonist Derek Evernden. His drawing is set in a restaurant, where a young couple are no longer enjoying what was a romantic dinner. The woman is sitting with her arms folded across her chest after having just used a fork to stab her date in the forehead. Her man looks shocked, as one would, and he’s holding his wine glass and saying something.
We all assumed the man is speaking, but Everden said the man’s mouth is open only because he’s surprised, and that his original caption was not a line of dialogue but a banner that read, “It occurred to Roger that he really doesn’t have thick skin.”
Some of you suggested that the woman stabbed the man because he wouldn’t stop talking about himself: “But enough about me.”
Or wasn’t being sufficiently attentive: “Okay, now I’m listening.”
Or had dozed off: “How long was I asleep?”
Or had made an offensive joke: “My friends think I’m funny.”
Or had just ended their relationship: “You were supposed to cry. Most women cry.”
This next entry addresses not only the fact that the man needs medical attention, but that he got stabbed because he refers to women as girls: “Luckily, the other girl I’m seeing is a doctor.”
This caption suggests that the woman misheard her date: “The wine. The wine is full-bodied.”
I usually hate mansplaining captions—they’re overdone—but this one is great: “You did that because you were frustrated with my mansplaining.”
Here are the month’s best sex jokes:
- “It was before we met, and besides, I never thought your sister would tell you.”
- “Forget I even mentioned a threesome.”
Mankoff sort of liked “My nuts are down here,” but nuts is a ridiculous word that no one uses. The caption would work much better with “testicles” or “balls.”
There were a lot of puns this month and I didn’t like any of them, but here are a few that weren’t quite as bad as the others:
- “You make three very strong points.”
- “I get your points.”
- “Point taken.”
The next three entries transformed an ordinary statement into a fitting caption:
- “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”
- “You really know how to hurt a guy.”
- “To my health.”
That last entry is especially clever because the man’s holding his wine glass as if he’s about to deliver a toast.
The following caption plays on the double-meaning of the last word while referring to the idiom “stick a fork in it,” which is used to signify that someone is finished or defeated: “Am I done?”
The next set of entries use understatement very effectively, even if they don’t quite match the man’s wide-eyed expression:
- “I know you’re angry when you cross your arms.”
- “This will make it harder for us to kiss later.”
- “I didn’t realize you were left-handed.”
- “Let’s go back to passive aggression.”
- “I respond to verbal cues, too.”
- “It’s in my forehead, isn’t it?”
- “This wasn’t in your profile.”
- “I can tell you’re upset.”
- “You’re upset with me.”
Here’s a good etiquette joke: “That one’s for salad.”
And here’s one of my favorite entries, but the other judges didn’t share my enthusiasm for it: “No, I will not ask the waiter to bring you another fork.”
Congratulations to TODD HUTTUNEN, who won this month’s contest with,
“I know you’re angry when you cross your arms.”
Here are the five runners-up:
- “Luckily, the other girl I’m seeing is a doctor.”
- “Let’s go back to passive aggression.”
- “It’s in my forehead, isn’t it?”
- “How long was I asleep?”
- “That one’s for salad.”
Watch the Judging Process
If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process with Derek and its below
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