"That isn't how the joke goes", said the cowboy hunched over in the corner of the saloon. The saloon was rundown, but lively. A piano played a jangly tune and the chorus was belted by a dozen drunken cattle runners, gold rushers, and ne're-do-wells. The whiskey flowed. In the distance, a wolf howled at the moon as if to ask it "Please, let the night go on forever." But over the horizon the sun objected like a stubborn bureaucrat. The bureaucrat slowly crossed the room, lighting everything at his feet as he moved. "Thank God I remembered to replace the batteries in this flashlight", the bureaucrat thought. The light bulb in his office had gone out again and would need to be replaced. Unfortunately that required a visit to the Supply Request Department downstairs. As he walked past the other offices he heard out of one "Fish!" as if the punchline to a joke had been given. But the bureaucrat heard no laughter.

The Secretary of Supply Requests seemed friendly enough and she had even offered him something to drink. He took a swig and the continued: "the light bulb in my office has...". Gulp. "It needs to be replace..." The bureaucrat looked around. Suddenly he was feeling dizzy. Something was wrong. He looked down at the drink and then at the Secretary. She smirked. Her plan had succeeded. He had been poisoned! The bureaucrat didn't know what to do. He was terrified. He felt vertigo, as if he stood at the top of a tall ladder. The room started to spin. Counter-Clockwise. Then all of a sudden everything went black. A few seconds later he felt the room spinning again-- strangely, in the opposite direction-- and suddenly, he lit up.

How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

One. They call in two surrealists, thus reducing it to an already solved problem.

How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? Fish.

Exactly. What are the 2 valid decodings of that? I struggle to come up with just 1 valid decoding involving giraffes and bathtubs; like the duck crossing the road, the joke is the frustration of our attempt to find the connection.