One-Downmanship

PAUL: My mother was a terrible cook.

STAN: Yeah, well, my mother was the worst cook ever.

DOUG: No way. My ma's cooking was so bad, she could burn delivery pizza.

JOE: My mom could burn water.

DOUG: Hell, my mom could burn ice cubes!

STAN: True story: My dad made a living as an exterminator. Someone called him about cockroaches, he went over there with a plate of my mom's leftovers. It never failed. The roaches would flee.

PAUL: Oh yeah? My mom's cooking has been studied by the Department of Defense. I hear they use it to interrogate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

JOE: They sent my mom's pancakes up on the space shuttle. And I mean on it. Tougher than asbestos, those pancakes. If they'd thought of it earlier, the Columbia wouldn't have burned up.

DOUG: My brother and I played a trick on our ma one time. We swapped the labels on all the jars in her pantry. Sugar, salt, baking soda, flour... But it backfired. Her cooking improved.

PAUL: My mom can't make lasagna anymore. The neighbors kept calling the police, finally took out a restraining order on her.

STAN: That's nothing. There's a city ordinance against my mom's liver and kidney pie.

JOE: There should be a law against anybody making liver and kidney pie.

STAN: Yeah, but my mom could make liver and kidney pie after starting with a brisket.

PAUL: I once said to my ma, "Hey, this chicken-noodle soup is pretty good." And she says, "Shut up, dickhead. It's a Caesar salad."

DOUG: You think that's bad? You remember when my folks went to Hawaii and left a freezer full of leftovers for me to eat? Long story short, my dog died.

STAN: So? What does that have to do with anything?

DOUG: He starved to death because I ate all his dog food. It was better than mom's leftovers.

PAUL: I used to pour my medicine over my mom's cooking, just so I could choke it down.

JOE: Well, my mom is such a bad cook that we hired your mom to cook for us.

[Pause]

PAUL: Arrgh!

STAN: Dude, you just...

DOUG: That's inside baseball!