This joke is a long one, but the punch line is really funny. Please read the whole thing.
A man was walking by the water cooler at work one day, and he over heard a couple of his co-workers talking and decided to join in their conversation. The conversation topic was 'The Purple Fuzz'. The man was very confused and asked what the purple fuzz was. His co-workers looked at him incredulously and one said, 'You don't know what the purple fuzz is, well I can't talk to you anymore." They then both turned on him and started talking in low muffled voices he couldn't understand.
Word spread quickyl that this man didn't know what the purple fuzz was, and everyone in the office started treating him very poorly. His secretary refused to give him any messages, he was purposefully not invited to the catered luncheon on the third floor, even the janitor refused to come in and empty his trash. He was treated like this for two full days, when at the end of the second day his boss called him in and said "I'm sorry to have to do this, but you're holding our company back and we're going to have to let you go. I want you out by this afternoon, we have your replacement coming in tomorrow morning and anything you leave behind will be thrown away."
The man tried to ask as to some explanation, but his boss wouldn't say anything else. He could hear though, on his way out his boss mumble under his breath something about the purple fuzz.
So he packs up his desk and belongings, picks up his last check (which was 100 dollars short of what he deserved), and goes home an hour early. His wife asks when he gets home why he is so early, and he tells her about the previous two days and how bad everyone was treating him and that his boss fired him today. By the end of the story this man is in tears, which tears don't really help to console him from the stresses of the preceeding days. He manages to speak through the sobs, "All because I don't know what the purple fuzz is, who cares about the dang purple fuzz anyways?"
"You don't know what the purple fuzz is?" his wife responds.
"No, that's what started this whole mess in the first place." he tells her.
"Well if you don't know what the purple fuzz is, we're going to have to get a divorce. I can't believe I married a man who doesn't know about the purple fuzz."
In divorce court as the man is trying to plead for enough possesions and money to stay alive, he explains his plight to the judge. When he gets to the part about not knowing about the purple fuzz, the judges recoils, and immediately awards all of the couples possesion to the wife, leaving the man unemployed, homeless, and with not to his name but the shirt on his back and the pants on his legs (the judge even made him give his wife the suit coat he was wearing at the hearing).
By now it's mid January, it's the worst winter the state had seen in 50 years. 3 feet of snow on the ground, sub zero temperatures under the noon-day sun, and our poor fellow barely hanging on to life. In desperation the man steals a few light winter clothes from a second hand store to try and ward off frezzing to death on the cold nights on the streets. Just as he is about to get out the door with his new found wardrobe, the employee at the store stops him and accuses him of stealing. Our man tries to explain his story yet again, this time leaving out the part about the purple fuzz, but the store employee refuses to listen and calls the cops.
The cops thake this man into custody and he has a trial date set for ajudge to hear his plot. In the mean time he can stay in the local prison. To this thought the man sees some hope, he'll at least be off the street for a few nights in a warm building with three meals a day. However the time he spent in the jail was far from pleasant. Word somehow got around that he didn't know what the purple fuzz was, and every day he was mercilessly beaten.
When his court date finally came, it turns out to be the same judge he had during his divorce hearing. Upon entering the court, the judge sees the man and instantly recognizes him. "You're that guy who doesn't know about the purple fuzz aren't you?"
He nods.
"Well, in that case I sentance you to 7 years of hard jail time. Maybe that will help you straighten your life out." The judge banged his gavel on his desk and left the court room.
Our man went to a maximum security prison, with the worst of the worst criminals. These were the murderers, rapists, bombers, terrorists, the true dregs of society. The news of the new guy that didn't know about the purple fuzz spread quicly and as a result this man had unspeakable things done to him. Beaten, unliked, sodomized, tortured, by guards and inmates alike. for 7 years this went on.
The man finally got out and was sitting at a bench in a park one day trying to figure out what he was going to do with what shards of his life he still had. As he was sitting there, he began again to cry just thinking about what had happened to him over the past few years of his life. as he was sitting there, lost in his own thoughts, an elderly woman sat next to him and said, "What seems to be troubling you son?"
The man hesitated, and asked the woman, "Do you promise not to hit me or call me names or turn me into the cops, send me to jail, scream, beat me with your purse, or anything else of the like if I tell you?"
"Of course I wont do anything of those things, just tell me what it is. even if you didn't know what the purple fuzz is I wouldn't do any of that to you."
"Well that's just it, I don't know what the purple fuzz is, and because of that i've..." he began to relate his story. When he was finally finished the woman told him that she was very sorry. She gave him $100 and told him to go get him a few clothes, and then come to her house in an hour, and she would tell him all about the purple fuzz.
The man was absolutely ecstatic. He wsa finally going to hear about the purple fuzz, and he would never have to be hated for not knowing again. This was the first thing that had gone well for this man in nigh 10 years, and the thought of new clothes, not the same ones he had been wearing since his divorce (for the prison refused to give him a uniform, saying he didnt deserve it) that thought almost over whelmed him. So our man thanked the woman heartily, got her address and promised to meet her at her house in exactly one hour.
The man stood up frrom the bench, started to cross the street to the clothing store accross frrom the park, and failed to see an oncoming bus, which hit the man, and he died instantly.
The end.