The Sticky Octopus

This joke works best with physical pantomime.

**The Octopus** A man is taking a long business trip overseas, so he asks his friend to take care of his pet octopus while he is away. The friend agrees and asks what he has to do. "It's simple," says the man. "All you have to do is take the octopus out of his tank once a week and put it in this tank over here, clean his tank, and then put him back in it. But whatever you do, do NOT drop him because he will stick to the floor and then you will have to use that shovel over in the corner to get him back up!" Then he leaves on his trip. Everything goes fine for a few weeks, but one day, while the friend is moving the octopus back to its tank, it slips out of his hands and SHPLOP! It splays out and sticks to the floor. "Oh no, what did he say? Ah yes, the shovel!" So the friend grabs the shovel from the corner [pantomime all of this], and he scrapes up one tentacle, then he scrapes up another, and as he is scraping up a third one, one of the others slips from his grasp and sticks to the floor again! He tries and tries, but the tentacles are just too slippery to hold onto. So he calls the man overseas and tells him what happened. "Oh my gosh!" says the man. "Well, did you use the shovel over in the corner?" "Yes, I used the shovel - I have been using the shovel for 45 minutes, and there is no way to get it up!" "That is very odd," says the man. "The shovel always worked in the past. Alright, tell you what, I will hop on the first plane home and will be there tomorrow; you must pour a cup of water over the octopus every 30 minutes until I get there, or it will dry out and die." So the next day the man gets to his home completely exhausted from the flight, to find his friend—who is also exhausted from being up 20 hours to keep the octopus moist—and two inches of water covering his ENTIRE home. He splashes over and says, "You're positive you used the shovel?" "Yes!" snaps his friend. "Watch!" The friend grabs the shovel from the corner [pantomime all of this], and he scrapes up one tentacle, then he scrapes up another, and as he is scraping up a third one, one of the others slips from his grasp and sticks to the floor again! "There! You see? There is just no way to get hold of it!" The man takes the shovel from his friend and says, "No! No! Like this!" [Raise shovel way over your head... like you are going to drive a tent peg through the center of the earth] Immediately the octopus goes like this [Here you cover your head with both arms, and partially curl into fetal position]. The man drops the shovel, picks up the octopus, and drops it into the tank! [pantomime as you say this]