The Cosmic Joke

When I first discovered the Cosmic Joke I felt sure that Douglas Adams must have been the first to tell it. But a web search turned up nothing conclusive, and since Adams is no longer around to tell the joke, you'll have to put up with my rendition of it.

One Monday morning — this was before the destruction of the Earth, so there were still Monday mornings — Arthur Dent was walking swiftly along the hallway of his office building, running his finger idly along the wainscoting to see how much dust he could collect. He was, for no particular reason, in a good mood. Suddenly, his finger hit a bump. He looked down and saw a small, black label, about two inches long. It was one of those plastic affairs with stamped letters that come out of label-making machines. It was firmly affixed to the wainscot, and it read:

COSMIC JOKE

Arthur was rather puzzled by this. He couldn't see anything nearby that the label might be referring to. He supposed someone had put it there as a prank. He kept walking.

And then, before he had gone ten paces, he got it.

He burst out laughing. Peal after peal of laughter forced its way out of his lungs. He felt lightheaded and had to lean against the wall and catch his breath.

"Would you please keep it down in the hall?" His coworker Sophie had poked her head out of a nearby office to see what was the matter. When she saw that Arthur was quite alone in the hall, her annoyed expression transformed into one of bewilderment. "What are you laughing about?"

Arthur grinned sheepishly, water in his eyes. "The Cosmic Joke," he shrugged.

The truth was, he was still trying to explain what was so funny about it to himself. As he later recounted it, what had made him laugh was, first, the dawning realization that the label referred to the entire universe, and second, the absurd idea that the two-inch sticker telling people what the whole shebang was about should be attached to a dusty office wall in northwestern Kent. It was, he thought, a very funny joke.

Every great joke has two punchlines (Bill Watterson is a master of this technique), and the Cosmic Joke is no exception. Arthur Dent spent the rest of his time on Earth believing that he had gotten the whole joke. Whether he ever got the second punchline, I don't know.