Four Expectant Fathers and the Waiting Room Joke!

Four fathers are waiting at a hospital when a nurse comes out with news for the first man. His wife has just had twins. The man laughs at the coincidence and explains that he works for the Minnesota Twins. The next father hears that his wife has had triplets. He works at 3M. The third hears that his wife has had quadruplets. He works at the Four Seasons.

By this point everyone is paying attention to the fourth father. He looks more worried with every announcement. Asked what is wrong, he explains that he works for 7UP.

This is a waiting room joke built on an easy pattern. Each father gets some news, then associates the number with the name of his workplace. The numbers are important because the first three outcomes give the last man a reason to be nervous. He hears two, three and four, then thinks about the number in his own employer’s name. The other men can follow exactly how he got there without anybody needing to say aloud what he expects.

The setting also contributes to the joke. A hospital waiting room is where people spend time with very little to do except think about news they cannot control. Every time somebody comes through the door, there is a brief possibility that it is their turn. The fourth man starts out in the same position as everyone else. As each announcement arrives, he becomes the only person who thinks the pattern might continue.

The first association sounds like the sort of thing somebody might say while trying to make sense of surprising news. The second gives it enough momentum to make listeners watch for a third. The Four Seasons makes the pattern seem unmistakable. The joke could have ended with the fourth father simply saying seven. The workplace name is funnier because it belongs to an ordinary part of his life that now seems to have something to do with a momentous event.

In the linked telling, the fourth father ultimately welcomes one healthy baby. That detail brings the scene back to its original situation. Everyone had been waiting for families to receive news. For a short time, a sequence of names gave people something to laugh about. Once the baby arrived, the number attached to the man’s job lost its power to frighten him.

A good way to tell the joke is to let each workplace name follow the announcement naturally. The nurse can stay matter of fact. The fathers supply the coincidences themselves. Pause after the third man speaks, because that is the instant in which listeners may start wondering what the last man does. When the final answer arrives, it has just enough information to complete the picture. The comedy depends on the audience finding the imagined outcome at the same moment as the other men in the room.

The illustration that accompanies the post gives the beginning of the joke. Its waiting room setup is the reason the answer makes sense. The four fathers are strangers brought together on an anxious day who discover a pattern nobody would have noticed outside the room. The fourth man turns that coincidence into a punch line merely by telling them where he works.