☀️ Macedonia Jokes

A plane was taking off from Skopje Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 78, non-stop from Skopje to Toronto. The weather ahead is good and therefore we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back, relax... and - OOOH MY GOD!"

Silence followed and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier, but while I was talking, the flight-attendant brought me a cup of coffee and spilled the hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!"

One of the passengers said: "That's nothing. He should see the back of mine!"

An American and a Canadian were seated next to a Macedonian on an overseas flight. After a few cocktails, the men began discussing their home lives.

"Last night I made love to my wife four times," the American bragged, "and this morning she made me delicious crepes and she told me how much she adored me."

"Ah, last night I made love to my wife six times," the Canadian responded, "and this morning she made me a wonderful omelette and told me she could never love another man."

When the Macedonian remained silent, the Canadian smugly asked, "And how many times did you make love to your wife last night?"

"Once," he replied.

"Only once?" the American arrogantly snorted. "And what did she say to you this morning?"

"Don't stop."

1. You have to prove that your state exists.
2. You have to prove that your language is not Bulgarian or Serbian.
3. You have to prove that you are a descendant of Alexander the Great and piss off the Greeks.
4. You can sing Partisan songs about Tito and epic songs about Goce Delcev.
5. You get to be researched by foreign sociologists interested in your identity.
6. You don't have to work even when you have to work, because you don't have work.
7. You get to be cosmopolitan and spit on all the nationalists.
8. Your country's biggest export is people who swear they're moving back next year.
9. You are the only country in the world that has had three names in thirty-five years without moving an inch — and you still call it by the first one.
10. Your country has the best climate conditions for producing tomatoes (and still your country imports tomatoes).

After 19 years without a census, Macedonia finally counted itself in 2021. The result: exactly 1,836,713 people.
About 430,000 are retired. That leaves 1,406,713 to do the work.
About 350,000 are in school, which leaves 1,056,713 to do the work.
About 130,000 are employed by the government, leaving 926,713 to do the work.
At any given time, 100,000 are in a hospital waiting room holding a paper number, which leaves 826,713 to do the work.
Half a million live in Toronto but happened to be back home visiting when the census came around — that leaves 326,713 to do the work.
Of these, 326,712 are between jobs, on sick leave, or working as consultants.
That leaves just ONE to do the work.
That's YOU (if you're Macedonian).
And you're sitting at your computer reading my jokes...

At the immigration office in Toronto, an old Macedonian was filling out a form.

"Place of birth?" asked the clerk.

"That's a long story."

"Sir, it's one line on the form."

"Young man, I was born in one country, did my army service in a second, and retired in a third — and I never once left my village."

The clerk stared at him. "How is that possible?"

"Simple. We don't move. The name does."

In 2021, Macedonia finally held its first census in nineteen years. The official result: 1,836,713 people.

A reporter asked the head of the statistics office: "How does it take nineteen years to count fewer than two million people?"

"The counting took a week," the official sighed. "Finding them took nineteen years. Half of them answered the door in Toronto."

"Tato, when is Macedonia joining the European Union?"

"Soon, sine. The talks are starting any day now."

"That's exactly what dedo says YOU asked HIM in 2005."

"You see? Twenty years, same answer. Consistency. That's why Europe respects us."

Every September, the Toronto Fire Service receives dozens of calls about thick smoke rising over Etobicoke.

A rookie firefighter jumped up at the first alarm, but the veteran captain waved him back into his chair.

"Relax, son. Red peppers? Big black pot? Whole family in the driveway since dawn?"

"Yes, sir! That's exactly what the caller described!"

"Stand down. That's not a fire. That's ajvar season. And if we hurry over there with the sirens on, we might embarrass them out of giving us a jar."

Filip video-called his baba in Bitola with big news.

"Baba, I got promoted! I'm making 120,000 dollars a year now!"

Baba wiped a proud tear, then leaned in close to the camera.

"Sine, that's wonderful. And with all that money, they still can't find you a wife and a house? What kind of company is this?"

"Baba, that's not how it works—"

"Eat something. You look thin. Success is making you thin."

My dedo refuses to say "North Macedonia."

"I am from Macedonia," he says. "If they need a compass direction so badly, they can call me North Dedo. I live in Toronto now. At least in my case it's accurate."

In Scarborough you don't need a calendar to know it's September. Every Macedonian driveway sprouts a propane burner, the smell of roasting peppers drifts three blocks in every direction, and forty kilograms of red peppers somehow become eleven jars.

Baba calls the missing jars "quality control." In forty years, her quality control has never once found a defective ajvar. She keeps testing anyway. Science demands it.

At a Macedonian wedding in Toronto, the oro started with twelve dancers.

By the third song it had two hundred, including the DJ, three waiters, a busboy who had never heard the music before in his life, and a couple who wandered over from the Portuguese wedding next door. They are now considered family and are expected at Christmas. They know this. They've already asked what to bring.

In 1979, dedo walked into a Tim Hortons and ordered one Turkish coffee. The kid behind the counter offered him a dark roast instead.

Dedo sighed the sigh of a displaced empire. "Fine. Two sugars, two creams. Like at home, but in a hurry."

To this day he insists he invented the double double. "I taught Canada how to drink coffee. They just left me out of the history books, same as always."

Every flight from Skopje to Toronto lands with the same miracle of physics: two hundred suitcases, each weighing exactly 23.0 kilograms.

Not 22.9. You don't waste allowance. Not 23.1. You don't gift the airline a single gram.

Inside: ajvar, sirenje, dried peppers, and one sweater for plausibility. The bathroom scale in a Skopje hallway the night before a flight is the most precisely calibrated instrument in Macedonian science.