late night humor

Tonight's funny joke.

I took my black Porsche to the Portuguese place for a wax job. When I got it back, the paint was stripped off the fenders!
The guy there says, "What! You knew I was Brazilian."
I'm glad I didn't ask for detailing.


It followed this:
Q: How many Republicans can have sex with Argentine women in the back of a clown car?
A: I don't know, but usually the Appalachian trail is closed to vehicular traffic!
Q2: Isn't Appalachian Trail a kind of wax job for men?

the overlap between "good people" and womanliness v. practicality in characterizational plot

I was discussing Nancy Kress elsewhere. Apparently she's written several books of advice and teaching for authors. I have only read her fiction.

In one of the books this girl, who spent a great deal of time preceding this scene explaining to the reader how much of a good person she is. Then, rather suddenly, she beats someone to death and plucks out their eye. This eyeball is carried with her to defeat the electronic sensors.

It has been my personal experience that people who view themselves as good people either hide their practicality or are mentally incapable of planning viciousness despite its practicality. If you could ask women on the street, of the ones who honestly think of themselves as good people, 100% of them will say they cannot imagine a scenario wherein they would carve out someone's eyeball after beating them to death.

Perhaps it is a gender bias or a cultural bias, but modern American society does not laud practicality (home owners associations that ban clotheslines) nor does it applaud violence done by women.

I knew it was meant to be shocking when I read it. But I didn't think it was shocking at all, of course if you need to defeat eyeball readers, you take the eye of someone with the appropriate clearance. How stupid would you have to be not to do the useful thing?

But I am extremely careful not to say that in public, especially amongst other women because I am already alien at heart, I do not need to prove that I am unwelcome as well.