What Do You Call this Type of Humor?

Matthew G. Saroff
1 min readJun 9, 2022

I love this kind of joke.

When I talk about loving Russian/Slavic humor, this is what I mean.

It speaks to my soul:

A German walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender tells him:

“That’ll be 100 euros.”

The German is in shock.

“What do you mean, 100 euros? Yesterday it was only 10!”

“Well today it’s 100.”

“But why 100, dammit?!”

“I’ll explain it to you now”, the bartender says. “10 euros is for the beer. 10 more — to help Ukraine. 20 — assistance to the European countries which have imposed sanctions and are not members of the EU. Another 10 — to help the UK for the successful implementation of its sanctions against Russia. Another 10 go to the Balkan countries to help them to buy heating coal. And the remaining 40 euros — they’re for the gas subsidy to the EU and the fund to help maintain sanctions.”

The German silently took out a hundred-euro bill and handed it to the bartender. The bartender took the money, put it into his cash register, and then took out a 10-euro note and gave it back.

The German is confused.

“Wait, you said 100 — I gave you 100. Why are you giving me back 10 euros?”

There’s no beer.”

I love this joke.

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