Delivery Style: setup-punchline

A policeman was interrogating three guys who were training to become detectives. To test their skills in recognizing a suspect, he shows the first guy a picture for 5 seconds and then hides it. “This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?”

The first guy answers, “That’s easy, we’ll catch him fast because he only has one eye!”

The policeman says, “Well…uh…that’s because the picture I showed is his side profile.”

Slightly flustered by this ridiculous response, he flashes the picture for 5 seconds at the second guy and asks him, “This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?”

The second guy smiles, flips his hair, and says, “Ha! He’d be too easy to catch because he only has one ear!”

The policeman angrily responds, “What’s the matter with you two?! Of course only one eye and one ear are showing because it’s a picture of his side profile! Is that the best answer you can come up with?”

Extremely frustrated at this point, he shows the picture to the third guy and in a very testy voice asks, “This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?”

He quickly adds, “Think hard before giving me a stupid answer.”

The third guy looks at the picture intently for a moment and says, “The suspect wears contact lenses.”

The policeman is surprised and speechless because he really doesn’t know himself if the suspect wears contacts or not.

“Well, that’s an interesting answer. Wait here for a few minutes while I check his file and I’ll get back to you on that.”

He leaves the room and goes to his office, checks the suspect’s file on his computer, and comes back with a beaming smile on his face.

“Wow! I can’t believe it. It’s true! The suspect does, in fact, wear contact lenses. Good work! How were you able to make such an astute observation?”

“That’s easy…” the third guy replied. “He can’t wear regular glasses because he only has one eye and one ear.”