Boudreaux and Thibodeaux

Those of y'all outside Louisiana may not be familiar with a whole series of Cajun jokes that usually feature the characters Boudreaux and/or Thibodeaux. (Exactly who they are can change from joke to joke: a bartender in one, a priest in the other, or whatever).

Here are three of my favorites:


#1: Boudreaux was in New Orleans.

He was patiently waiting and watching the traffic cop on a busy street crossing. The cop stopped the flow of traffic and shouted, "Okay, pedestrians." Then he'd allow the traffic to pass.

He'd done this several times, and Boudreaux still stood on the sidewalk.

After the cop had shouted, "Pedestrians!" for the tenth time, Boudreaux went over to him and said, "Ain't it 'bout time ya let the Catholics across?"



#2: A Parish priest is driving down to New Orleans from Alexandria and gets stopped for speeding. The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car.

He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?"

"Just water," says the priest.

The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"

The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"



(This last one came out not longer after the oil spill.)

#3: Boudreaux suddenly quit drinking, took a bath, quit chasing women, quit his poker games and stopped lying around.

He started cutting the grass around the church, even painted it and was faithful to be first to attend on Sundays!

Father Thibodeaux asked him what about dis wonderful change that had done overtook him.

Boudreaux explained, "I heard ‘Crisis in the Gulf’ and if He's dat close, I wanna be good to go!”

I love them, Emily! Now I need more ...

I just found this site tonight. I read a couple and was laughing out loud. BTW, I should add that one of my great aunts married a Boudreaux, so my dad has Boudreaux cousins he grew up around. That makes these jokes even funnier to me.

http://www.southernthoughts.com/STBoudreaux.htm

I had an officemate in grad school who was from Thibodaux, LA. She sure talked funny. Dinnah. Alligaytah. Didn't tell any jokes, though. Somehow our Swedish guy classmates got "squarrel jambalaya" from her.

Ah, Louisiana, the only US state with parishes instead of counties.

Julie, that reminds me of another set of jokes (though not Cajun):


You know you're from New Orleans when...

You don't know what a dry county is.



You know you're from New Orleans when...

You don't know what a county is.

Dry county? Are those still around?

You mean back in the days you can buy booze anywhere in LA?

I don't know about all of Louisiana or about way back in the day. All I know is, we like our booze here in south Louisiana. People can walk around the streets with open containers of alcohol here in New Orleans. I remember once they had a bar next to the movie theater concession stand (I don't think they do anymore, and of course you had to be of age to enter that area). I also remember daiquiris being sold in the movie theater. Laissez les bon temps rouler (let the good times roll) is taken very seriously down here. Hee hee...

And yes, they still have dry counties. When I was in NW Arkansas, the county next to mine was dry. (Which really pisses me off when people play the fun police and decide that not only do they want to not partake of something, but they get to decide whether you do too.) There's a liquor store in the county I lived in that's right on the border with the other county. It's called County Line Liquor. It might be because it's where people in the dry county can come to buy their booze, but I don't know. Also, though the county I lived in wasn't dry, we could only buy liquor 6 days a week, but not on Sundays. (There might have been some exceptions to this, like in restaurants, but I'm not sure.)

I remember when liquor Blue Laws were still around. The grocery stores cordoned off the alcohol sections on Sundays. We can buy booze now anyday, anytime. I don't drink, but that's just me. One of my favorite stores is Spec's Liquor Store. They have one of the best selections of imported crackers, cookies, candies and chocolates.

Yes, it irritates me, too, when some people want to stop others from doing things they don't want to do. As long as whatever people want to do doesn't harm others, I don't give a hoot if they hurt themselves - their choice, it should be legal and available.