A few years ago I was hosting a Christmas party.
As is the way with these things, it was decided that what was really needed to get things going with a swing was a strong yet sweet drink to buck everyone up. So we found some fruit juice, and poured it into a bowl with a good chug of a range of spirits. There was some brandy, some rum, a touch of whisky. Then, for roundness, we threw in some port and some sherry, which someone had picked up from the 24-hour off-licence around the corner. Truth be told, it was the kind of drink that you’d never consume anywhere other than a Christmas party. And yet in the context of a Christmas party… well, everyone wanted to try some.

This gave us a problem. Such was the enthusiasm of the guests that soon a crowd had formed around the table on which the bowl containing the mixture of fruit juice, fortified wine, and spirits was sitting. There was a very real danger that the crowd’d knock the whole thing over, or, at least, spill some of the drink (whose name, incidentally, comes from the Sanskrit for “five”). This would be a disaster. But how could the calamity be avoided?

I had an idea. I nipped out to the 24-hour stationer’s around the corner, and bought a book of cloakroom tickets. I then assigned each guest a number, which would mean I could arrange them into a queue.

With my concern for justice, I was aware that I might be suspected of assigning numbers in such as way as to give priority to people I favoured; and I did not want to display any bias, unconscious or otherwise. To avoid this undesirable outcome, I put the stubs of the tickets into a tombola that I had also bought – there was a 24-hour tombola shop around the corner – and assigned places in the queue for the sweetended alcoholic drink according to the sequence in which numbers were called.

With that setup in place, I could generate a highly contrived punch-line.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 11 May 2018, 15:39, 5 replies, latest was 6 years ago)

Fuck you ya cunt that you are!

( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Sat 12 May 2018, 7:14, Reply)

Hooray!

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Sat 12 May 2018, 9:24, Reply)

Oh please no.

( FeralCatMan Unusual disease collector., Sat 12 May 2018, 16:01, Reply)

Yeah, well.
Someone had to.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Sun 13 May 2018, 11:48, Reply)

could generate a highly contrived punch-line pissed in my own mouth
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Sat 12 May 2018, 23:09, Reply)