A place where crows go to pry up manholes.

The other day a friend told me an age-old joke that I'd completely forgotten.

"What's a crow bar?" she asked.

I, knowing she wasn't ignorant of the tool and thus must be trying to get a laugh, shook my head. "A place where crows go to drink. That's such a stupid line."

She agreed, of course, and followed up on it with a few zingers about pirates. (Actually, 'groaners' is probably more appropriate.) Most were funnier than the crow bar, and a lot less obvious.

Later that night, hoping to test my parents, I approached my father.

"Got a joke for you."

"What's that?" he asked, folding his paper in that stereotypical Ward Cleaver kind of way to look at me.

"What's a crow bar?"

He looked confused for a second.

"It's a length of metal, about a foot and a half long, used for prying up-"

But he stopped, because I'd smacked myself in the forehead and walked off.