The joke:
A new website can calculate how long your supply of toilet paper will last. You just input your height, your weight, and whether you eat at Chipotle.
How I wrote it:
I picked this topic because a joke about calculating toilet paper usage seemed like it could proceed in a lot of different directions.
I turned to my Punch Line Maker #3 and asked this natural question about the topic: “Who might need a lot of toilet paper?”
To answer that question, I brainstormed associations of the topic handle “toilet paper.” One such association is “diarrhea,” which to me is associated with “Chipotle.” To make sure the audience was likely to make the same association, I double-checked online that Chipotle had had outbreaks of E. coli, which causes diarrhea.
After I decided that my laugh trigger would be “Chipotle,” I employed my Joke Maximizer #10–Use the Rule of Three–to write an angle that would smoothly bridge between the topic and that laugh trigger. Doing a list just felt right.
The real toilet paper website doesn’t ask you for your height and weight, but I decided to list those inputs because they’re plausible and short. I always try to obey my Joke Maximizer #1–Shorten as much as possible.
I also kept the joke short by not mentioning the coronavirus in the topic, even though it was the reason for creating the website. I didn’t think that detail was necessary, particularly since it would probably remind the audience of the unfunny pandemic and therefore hurt the joke.