Milkman joke

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Milkman jokes, though they appear in dozens of different forms, all have the same basic plot: a woman gives birth to an infant who more closely resembles the local milkman than her husband, revealing the child's biological father and, in the process, the mother's adultery.

The joke's context is an era in Western society that lacked inexpensive and ubiquitous refrigeration, and milkmen were an established trade. A milkman would regularly visit each house in an assigned neighborhood, usually in the morning, to drop off bottles of fresh milk and take away empty bottles from his previous visit. In the same era, men were almost without exception the sole financial supporters of their families, and a man's wife was expected to remain at home to care for their children. As the milkman would visit the home at a time when the husband would be away at work, this created an opportune situation for adultery.

As fears and suspicions over paternity are universal, each culture has its equivalent of the milkman joke. And occasionally, derivatives of the joke appear, with the milkman having been replaced by a member of some different occupation: the mailmen, plumbers or generic repairmen are often used. One variant is the series of Farkle family sketches from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, where a couple's children all resemble their next-door neighbor. Even Monty Python's Flying Circus had a short milkman sketch, where a lonely housewife lures the milkman into her house and up many stairs, then shoves him in a room with nine other milkmen, many of whom are very old (and two skeletons wearing milkmen uniforms) and locks the door. An entire episode of Father Ted was based upon the joke.

[edit] Example

A man and a pregnant woman visit their doctor to see how the baby is coming along. While there, the doctor mentions that they have made a new treatment that allows a female to transfer the pain of childbearing onto the father of the baby. The couple decide that it is a good plan, so they hook up the mother and the doctor turns on the machine. "I'll start it off on 10% transfer rate.", the doctor says. "I don't feel anything painful at all.", the man says. "Oh yeah, baby! That's great!", the mother says. "That's odd", the doctor says, "I'll crank it up to 50%". "Still nothing...", the man says. The mother's smile gets even bigger. "Okay, I'll put it on 100% then.", the doctor says. "STILL nothing!", the man says. The woman looks very, very happy. "We'll just leave, this isn't working. I mean, it is for her, not for me though.", the man says. "That's fine. I'd say you're a very lucky man. This is the first time that the pain has just been deleted.", the doctor replies. So the couple goes back home and they walk up to the front door of their house. The milkman is lying there dead.