It’s all About Timing
Good joke, bad timing…
In news that seemingly didn’t make it over the border, Canada suffered a listeriosis outbreak last year that killed 22 people. That’s not the joke. That’s just some background info. The joke came via Rory McAlpine, vice-president of government and industry relations with Maple Leaf Foods.
While speaking at a conference, McAlpine told the story of a woman who kissed the Stanley Cup when it visited her hometown during the listeria crisis.
“Just shortly after the crisis … the Stanley Cup came to Orillia,” he tells the crowd on a video that has made its way to the YouTube video hosting site. “There was a woman so excited that she went and she kissed the Stanley Cup. But then she got home and she began to worry and she began to wonder, `Oh my God, am I going to get listeria, I kissed the Stanley Cup.’
“So she phoned up Health Canada and the nice lady at Health Canada said, `Oh, no, no, no, no, you don’t need to worry. The Stanley Cup hasn’t been in any contact with a Maple Leaf product for 42 years.”
Zing! He waited, possibly mentally shouting “AMIRITE” and expecting the obligatory “Oh snap, son!” or at least a laugh or two, but instead he got:
Chirp…Chirp (the room was icy, so the chirps were infrequent. Science!)
He then tried to save himself by explaining the outbreak is a “serious issue” with personal importance to him because his university-aged son was made ill for 24 hours by “tainted meat that my company produces.”
Oh yeah, that’s the kicker. The company he works for, Maple Leaf Foods, is the company that poisoned the people who died–the company who settled a class-action lawsuit last year with a payout of up to $27 million to its victims. OOPS!
He’s since apologized and called the joke ill-conceived, which, no, it was well-conceived. It was a great joke. It was just a great joke that shouldn’t have been told. The only way he could have made the joke less appropriate is to have made it at a victim’s funeral while elbowing the widow and asking her for a high-five.