2014-01-30
Explanation
The Joke
A woman (apparently a daughter) asks her mother: "At what point did you throw up the most when you were pregnant with me?" The mother, wearing glasses, replies: "In the weeks leading up to fertilization." The caption reads: "Sometimes I'm glad Mom and Dad split up."
The Humor
The daughter expects her mother to describe morning sickness during pregnancy, which is a normal experience. Instead, the mother says she threw up the most "in the weeks leading up to fertilization" -- meaning the period before she got pregnant, which implies she was nauseated by the sexual encounters with the daughter's father that led to conception. This is a devastating insult to the father, suggesting the mother found being intimate with him so repulsive that it made her physically ill. The caption -- "Sometimes I'm glad Mom and Dad split up" -- is the daughter's wry response, acknowledging that her mother clearly despised her father so much that their divorce was probably for the best. The joke works by subverting expectations about pregnancy-related nausea and redirecting it into a darkly funny commentary on a terrible relationship.