The Wyoming Cowboys visit Albertsons Stadium in a few days, and I thought it might be fun to welcome them with some gentle humor at their expense. In other words, I’ve been all over the Internet trying to find Wyoming jokes.
There are plenty of jokes that mention Wyoming in them, but they’re not real Wyoming jokes. I found a couple of websites that tell jokes about each of the 50 states, but on the Wyoming page I found the same jokes that were on the Arizona, Indiana, Rhode Island, Florida and Hawaii pages. In other words, just a list of jokes with one state taken out and another inserted in its place. For instance, “What’s the most popular pickup line in Wyoming?” The answer: “Nice tooth.” But that’s also a West Virginia joke, and Arkansas, and Missouri and Illinois and Vermont. So it’s really just about poor people who don’t go to the dentist. And you can find them in New York and California, too.
Those aren’t the kinds of jokes I was looking for. I wanted something more Wyoming, possibly even inside jokes you would only understand if you’ve lived in Wyoming. One page I found had a bunch of Wyoming one-liners told in the style of Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes, like “If you’ve ever mowed your lawn and found a car, you might be a redneck.” The Wyoming jokes weren’t great, but they at least had a little more to do with Wyoming than the generic jokes. Here are the ones I liked: “If ‘vacation’ means shopping in Casper while the kids swim at the Comfort Inn, you might live in Wyoming.” “If someone in a store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you might live in Wyoming.” “If you’ve ever worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you might live in Wyoming.” “If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Wyoming.” “If you know several people who have hit a deer with their car more than once, you might live in Wyoming.” “If you have security lights on your house and garage but leave the doors unlocked, you might live in Wyoming.” “If driving is better in winter because the potholes are filleld with snow, you might live in Wyoming.” And “If the only time there’s ever a traffic jam is the night of a high school basketball game, you might live in Wyoming.”
These jokes aren’t bad, but they’re also a little bit generically rural and cold. Every one of them could fit easily in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin or Michigan. I kept looking and found a few more: “In Wyoming, the number one attraction is Yellowstone Park. Number two is Cabelas.” “In Wyoming, antelope is ‘the other white meat’.” And “In Wyoming, the most common ethnic food is mustard”. I felt as if those were getting a little closer to the point, especially the one about Yellowstone and Cabelas. I kept searching. One joke said on the new Google maps, you can find anything in Wyoming except a destination. Another said the difference between Wyoming and yogurt is yogurt has an active, living culture.
And then there was this exchange between two Wyoming cowboys. The first cowboy says, “I’m going to buy a new truck”. The second cowboy says, “Then you need to get the new Toyota Tundra Supercharger. It’s got a five-point-seven-litre V-8, 504 horsepower and 550 pound feet of torque! The Tundra is so fast, you can leave Casper at six in the morning and arrive in Cheyenne at 7am!” “I’ll think about it,” says the first cowboy. The next day, the two run into each other again. “Well,” says the second cowboy,” did you get a new pickup truck?” “Sure did,” says the first cowboy. “Did you take my advice,” asks the second cowboy, “and get the new Toyota Tundra Supercharger with the 5.7-litre V-8?” “Nope,” says the first cowboy. “Got a Ford F-150.” “Huh?” says the second cowboy. “Why didn’t you get the Tundra?” “Well,” says the first cowboy, “I checked it out. There ain’t nothin’ to do in Cheyenne at 7am.”
I learned three things from my search for Wyoming jokes. Number one, an overwhelming number of websites with jokes are terrible, and they’re all the same amount of terrible, because they plagiarize everything from other websites with jokes. Number two, humor in Wyoming comes from looking at yourself and your friends and wondering ‘why in the world would we choose to live in such a cold, hard place in the middle of nowhere?’ And number three, there’s no reason in the world I should feel an obligation to make visitors from Wyoming to Idaho feel right at home. They clearly are already going to.
One more joke. It’s the last one I found, and because I went to Boise State, it was my favorite of the bunch. “What’s the difference between a good football team and a great football team?” The answer: “The Wyoming-Idaho border”. And I have no intention of attempting to make the same joke about the Idaho-Utah border. Not this year, anyway.
