Knock, Knock...Who's There?

Let's take a little trip to Odd-Land, shall we?

Our three-year-old woke up this morning, came into our room and announced the following:


"I heard a noise in my room last night while I was sleepin'."

"You did?", we asked, "What did it sound like?"

Our daughter replied, "Well, it, um, sounded like...a knock-knock joke!"

I will pause for a moment to let that sink in.

It was at this precise moment in the conversation that I could feel the synapses of my brain frying. Surely, I was about to have an aneurism trying to figure this one out.

After we re-gained our composure, we asked,

"What did the knock-knock joke sound like?"

"Well," said our daughter, "it sounded like....'knock knock, who's there, banana!'"

I can tell you that, at this point, my brain looked at me, picked up its coat and said, "I'm outta' here...check please."

Now, I have heard lots of noises in my sleep. I have had moments where I could've sworn that the kids were calling me. At times, I have heard the dog having some sort of "gotta' get that rabbit" dream and huffing & puffing in his sleep...at least I HOPE that's what he's dreaming about.

I mean, he's a dog. What about his life is so stressful that he has nightmares?

"Laying on the floor, laying on the floor, licking up crumbs, licking myself, laying on the floor, gotta' go outside, gotta' go back in, gotta' eat, gotta' see what's on top of this counter, gotta' grab this brownie before anyone sees me, oops got yelled at, gotta' go get some sleep."

That's the extent of his exciting day. Still, he huffs and puffs and whines in his sleep. This, by the way, usually causes me to ball up one of my socks and lob it down to the foot of bed and peg him right in the snout.

"SHHHH!", I call out to the dog.

He then assumes that I am calling him, of course.

"Hmmm....'SHHHH'," he thinks to himself, "That must mean 'come here and lick my hand.'"

He then comes over to the side of the bed and plants a big, wet one on me to see what's up. I usually give him an obligatory pat on the head.

"Now, go back to sleep....good boy...and shut up."

ANYWAY, in all of my years, I have never heard a knock-knock joke in my room in the middle of the night...although I admit, the prospect does seem rather entertaining.

Of all the knock-knock jokes in the world, why would she hear the old "Banana...'banana who?'" joke?

I gave my daughter the only advice I could think of.

"Orange you glad you were able to go back to sleep?" :-)