Number 72
A guy is imprisoned for his first time
On his first night, a few minutes after lights-out, his cellmate moves closer to the cell-bars.
A while later, someone from another cell shouts “Number 13!”. His cellmate and the entire block bursts into laughter. The new prisoner finds this strange.
Shortly after they were done laughing, another inmate shouts “33!” and the entire block of inmates again started laughing. “27!” Shouted another inmate. More laughter followed. The new prisoner is now completely puzzled.
“What’s going on? Why is everyone laughing at numbers?” He asks the cellmate. “Oh!” Replied the cellmate, still giggling. “Thing is, we’ve been in here for so long, we told the same jokes until we eventually knew them all, so we decided to give them numbers, so that instead of saying the entire joke, you just say the number and we know which one it is!”.
Astonished, the new prisoner decides to see if that’s true. He goes over to the cell bars and shouts “Number 72!”. All the inmates explode into a massive laughter, and the entire block is roaring, to a point where his cellmate is now on the floor, rolling with laughter. The new prisoner is now dumbstruck and completely lost.
“Which one is number 72?” He asks the cellmate. In between laughs, while trying to catch his breath, his cellmate replies “We’ve never heard that one before!”