Osler's Razor

When I was a kid, I shared a bathroom with my brother.  It was an excellent bathroom-- walls made of barn wood, a rickety towel rack, a tub you could sink into easily.  There was (and still is) a radiator under the shelf for towels, meaning that your towel was toasty warm in the winters.  A tiny drawing of a female nude hangs across from the tub.

The best feature, though, was a late addition.  My mom grew disgusted with the cup we used on the sink, and instead of yelling at us she installed a Dixie Cup dispenser.  It was awesome.

Then things got even better-- she loaded it up with Dixie Knock-Knock Cups, each of which featured a different and terrible knock-knock joke.  A few of them I still remember.  For example:

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Highball.
Highball who?
Highball is hard to catch!

Since we weren't big consumers of cocktails at ages 5-12, we had no idea what a "highball" was.  (I'm still not exactly sure, though I know there is a glass for it).  Cocktail-based humor for children kind of went with cartoon-based cigarette advertising and everything else we had in the 70's...

There there was this one:

Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Tissue.
Tissue who?
Tissue if you tum tozer!

It took us years to figure this one out.  It had no apparent meaning.  Finally, a family friend told us that it must be a variation of "kiss you if you come closer."  Who knew?

Please feel free to insert your own favorite knock-knock joke, whether or not it was produced by the Dixie Cup corporation, in the comments section below...