How do you cross crocodile river with only a rubber band?
Just swim across--the crocodiles are still at the meeting.
Just swim across--the crocodiles are still at the meeting.
I always heard it starting with:
"You have 300 bricks and you throw one as far as you can, how many do you have left?
299"
The elephant to the river is the same but this joke is told about someone else crossing the river instead. Finally it ends with:
"But... They still don't make it across, why?
Because you threw a brick at them!"
The brick joke is an absolute classic. The only tragedy is that it's hard to set up without other people coming in with the payoff before you can.
It's saying that the river only has a rubber band, rather than the person crossing the river. The crocodiles, which we assume are normally present based on the apparent name of said river, are (for some reason) in a meeting, and thus not currently present. Therefore, as the punchline says, you can simply swim across, nothing to worry about (the river current isn't very strong I guess).
It's actually based on a string of jokes I posted in this community. But that's a fun interpretation! I just added the rubber band as a red herring.