James Lileks blogged about many things today, but among them was labels on filing cabinet drawers. This prompted me to mention, in the comments, a secret joke I’ve been carrying on for years.
I was working at my student job, sitting behind the library desk at Waldorf College, Forest City, Iowa, back around 1968, when I came up with what I thought was a hilarious filing cabinet drawer label joke. (This is a small, rather specialized field of humor.)
Two file drawers, one above the other.
The first is labeled, MEMPHIS to MOBILE.
The second is labeled, NATCHEZ to SAINT JOE.
I’ve had those labels on filing cabinets wherever I’ve lived and/or worked ever since. I don’t think anyone has ever gotten the joke.
Do you? (You get no points if you read down the comments on Lileks’ post and see what I wrote there.)
All four are names of towns or cities, but in alphabetical order. Thus they might be rail lines or bus-routes instead of file drawers.
It’s like the hapless bookworm, wanting relational advice, who checked out “How to Hug” only to find when he got it home that he had Vol. 10 of the OED.
Factually true, but you have failed to grasp the nub.
My guess is that Memphis to Mobile is the southern half of the Mississippi, and Natchez to Saint Joe is the northern half, but that seems to be the reverse of what you’d want if it was code for A-L and M-Z.
No, no, no. You guys are disappointing me deeply.
Did you meet any Stolls in Forest City? I’ve got distant relatives there.
Did you meet any Stolls in Forest City? I’ve got distant relatives there.
Not that I recall.
Something to do with Johnny Mercer?
You’re getting warmer. If you don’t get it right away, you probably won’t be able to guess.
Maybe Bugs Bunny goes there before he gets to Albuqerque.
So I went to the Lileks post and didn’t see the answer. Would you spell it out for us?
I didn’t actually post the answer, but one of the other commenters explained it.
I’ll post the answer tonight.
Maybe I saw the answer and didn’t fully understand it. I probably understand it, but don’t see it as an explanation.
YOU GUYS! IT’S FROM A SONG!
Billie Holiday’s “Blues in the Night.”
HOWEVER, in the song, the lyrics are “From Natchez to Mobile, from Memphis to St. Joe.”
(If I recall correctly, George Carlin incorporated that bit into his “Al Sleet, Hippy-Dippy Weather Man, bringing you all of the hippy-dippy weather, man” routine, and he sang it as “From Memphis to Mobile, from Natchez to St. Joe.”)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song, but I didn’t attempt to enter the contest anyway.
I used to like to arrange the spice bottles in our spice rack in this order:
Parsley – Sage – Rosemary – Thyme
Roy wins the No Prize. Only it’s Harold Arlen’s “Blues in the Night,” rather than Billie Holliday’s.
I had to rearrange the words to make it alphabetical, but honestly that was how I remembered them.
Like I said, I knew if was from the song (which I had to look up; I’ve heard it once maybe) but I guess I had to think to much to get to that point and then it wasn’t funny enough to me so I thought I didn’t get it. Sorry to be dense. My momma done told me . . .
You Chattanoogans just don’t understand the Blues like we Minnesotans do…
But nobody
Can sing the Blues
Like Blind Willie
McTell!