(with thanks to the lovely LW, who keeps me well supplied with jokes by text)

A man wakes up one morning with the most awful hangover. It feels like he’s had some small mammal die in his mouth the previous night, although that’s probably from the kebab; his head is pounding with a solid resounding throb and it feels like the entire outer surface of his eyeballs hurt.

On top of that, he’s feeling a little shaky; he’s sweating out alcohol, his legs are a little unsteady and he’s feeling somewhat queasy. But alarm bells are ringing in his head which are somehow different from the dull thump of the hangover and he sits upright in bed to find out what’s going on.

There’s a burning smell coming from downstairs. A slightly oily smell; as if something is cooking, but also very much as though something is on fire.

Braving the calls of his eyes (“close us!”), his head (“go back to sleep”), his stomach (“don’t move, I don’t feel very well”) and his liver (“look, I think it’d be easier if you just lay still, I’m sure the undertaker will be here soon”) he decided it was necessary to investigate and stumbled downstairs.

A thick cloud of smoke was coming from the kitchen where his wife was frying one of the Homer Simpson socks he’d had on the night before. The smell was enough to make him retch, and he stumbled away from the kitchen shouting “what on earth are you doing?”

“I’m doing what you asked me to do last night. I said were you sure that is what you’d wanted me to do, and you said yes…”

“Funny”, thought the man as he slumped into the sofa. “I can’t imagine why, when I came in drunk last night, I would have possibly asked her to cook my sock.”