SPOOF (Funny story with twist)

1. Horseman In The Sky

Carter Druse was born in Virginia. He was a southerner. When the United States was divided by a terrible civil war, Carter decided to join the Union Army of the north.

He told his father about his decision to join the north army. His father looked deep into his son's eyes. "Carter, No matter what happens, be sure you always do what you think is your duty."

One sunny afternoon, Carter was sent to guard. It was his duty to be sure that no enemy soldier spied on. Suddenly, he saw a man on horseback standing on the huge rocky cliff. He held a gun in his right hand, and the horse's reins in the other. Unavoidably, Carter pointed his gun. Carter was calm as he pulled the trigger.

Soon after firing his gun, Carter was joined by a Union sergeant.
"Did you fire?" The sergeant whispered.
"Yes."
"At what?" The sergeant continued.
"A horse"
"Was there anyone on the horse?" The sergeant asked again.
"Yes."
"Who? " The sergeant kept asking.
"My father."

Note: This example of ironic spoof text is summarized from Ambrose Bierce's A Horseman in the Sky

Taken from: http://understandingtext.blogspot.com/2011/05/example-of-spoof-text-with-ironic-twist.html>20/2/2012

2. What time is it?

A tramp lie down and sleep in the park. He had been sleeping for about 5 minutes when a couple walked by. The man stopped, woke the tramp up , and asked him, "Excuse me.
Do you know what the time is?" The tramp replied, "I'm sorry - I don't have a watch, so I don't know the time."
The man apologized for waking the tramp and the couple walked away.

The tramp lay down again, and after a few minutes went back to sleep. Just then, a woman, who was out walking her dog, shook the tramp's shoulder until he woke up again.
The woman said, "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I'm afraid I've lost my watch - do you happen to know the time?" The tramp was a little annoyed at being woken up again, but he politely told the woman that he didn't have a watch and didn't know the time.

After the woman had gone, the tramp had an idea.
He opened the bag that contained all his possessions and got out a pen, a piece of paper and some string. On the paper, he wrote down, 'I do not have a watch. I do not know the time'.
He then hung the paper round his neck and eventually dropped off again.

After about 15 minutes, a policeman who was walking through the park noticed the tramp asleep on the bench, and the sign around his neck.
He woke the tramp up and said, "I read your sign. I thought you'd like to know that it's 2:30 p.m."

This example of spoof text is taken from www.kinglishschool.com/joke_tramp.htm

3. The Zoo Job Story

        One day a clown was visiting the zoo and attempted to earn some money by making a street performance. He acted and mimed perfectly some animal acts. As soon as he started to drive a crowd, a zoo keeper grabbed him and dragged him into his office. The zoo keeper explained to the clown that the zoo's most popular gorilla had died suddenly and the keeper was fear that attendance at the zoo would fall off. So he offered the clown a job to dress up as the gorilla until the zoo could get another one. The clown accepted this great opportunity.
         So the next morning the clown put on the gorilla suit and entered the cage before the crowd came. He felt that it was a great job. He could sleep all he wanted, played and made fun of people and he drove bigger crowds than he ever did as a clown. He pretended the gorilla successfully.
         However, eventually the crowds were tired of him for just swinging on tires. He began to notice that the people were paying more attention to the lion in the next cage. Not wanting to lose the attention of his audience, he decided to make a spectacular performance. He climbed to the top of his cage, crawled across a partition, and dangled from the top to the lion's cage. Of course, this made the lion furious, but the crowd people loved it.
           At the end of the day the zoo keeper came and gave him a raise for being such a good attraction. Well, this went on for some time, he kept taunting the lion, the audience crowd grew a larger, and his salary kept going up. Then one terrible day happened. When he was dangling over the furious lion, he slipped and fell into the lion cage. The clown was really in big terrible situation. He was terrified.
          Sooner the lion gathered itself and prepared to pounce. The clown was so scared. He could do nothing and he began to run round and round the cage with the lion close and closer behind. Finally, the lion could catch him. The clown started screaming and yelling, "Help me, help me!", but the lion was quick and pounces. The clown soon found himself flat on his back looking up at the angry lion and suddenly he heard a voice from the lion’s mouth;"Shut up you idiot! Do you want to get us both fired?".

(Re-written and simplified from www.onlyfunnystories.com)