How to hear a joke

OK. All you crappy joke hearers out there, I need you to listen up. When someone tells you a joke that is in the format of call and response, i.e. "What do you call a ...?" "I don't know, what?" "you call it ****!" (laughter), you need to follow the rules.

What you need to do, if someone is telling you a joke like that, is be obedient. You need to just say "what?". DO NOT try to come up with your own punchline. DO NOT ask a smartass question of clarification. DO NOT do anything at all except for the simplest possible thing you can do to allow the person who is TELLING the joke to get to the punchline, uninterrupted.

You see, not only is it kind of annoying for you to usurp the opportunity of the joke teller to be funny, but it inevitably ruins the joke. Comedy is 75% timing. If the joke teller has to first deflect your guess as to what the punchline is before telling the actual (and I guarantee, funnier) punchline, then the momentum of the joke is lost. If you do this, and the joke is not funny, well... it might not actually be a funny joke, but.... you HELPED to kill it. There is comic blood on your hands. And by comic blood, I don't mean ketchup. I mean the blood of the joke you just murdered with your self centered, attention seeking, arrogant idea that you can improve a joke you haven't even finished hearing with your own peanut gallery style quips.

I'm telling you, when someone is telling you a joke, you need to be humble. You have to just say your one line and get off the stage. Don't try to steal the spotlight from the headliner. Nobody wins when that happens. And thousands of jokes die every day from people who think otherwise /RANT