Into View
Q: “How many stories has your house?”
A: “Well, there’s abasement, a best seller, a sad story, a tall story, a fairy story and a symptomatic. But I live on the first flaw.”
Kay Sage
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
Q: “How many stories has your house?”
A: “Well, there’s abasement, a best seller, a sad story, a tall story, a fairy story and a symptomatic. But I live on the first flaw.”
Kay Sage turns a simple question about how many floors a house has into a pun. In English, "stories" can mean the levels of a building or tales people tell, and the answer plays on both meanings at once. The house includes a "best seller," a "sad story," a "tall story," and a "fairy story," each a kind of narrative stacked like a floor. Even "abasement" sounds like "basement" while meaning humiliation, and "symptomatic" hints at illness or something being slightly off.
The last line is the joke's sting. "First flaw" echoes "first floor," but the speaker lives on a flaw, not a floor. The tone is dry, deadpan, and a little rueful. The speaker seems to be admitting, with a straight face, that their home, and perhaps their life, is built from stories and imperfections. The mood is wry and playful, but the humor leaves a faint unease behind it.