It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth.

This line is characteristic of George Burns’s late-career persona: the genial, deadpan elder statesman of show business who delivered “old man” one-liners about drinking, marriage, and longevity. Burns used such jokes in stand-up and television appearances as part of a carefully crafted comic voice—wry, self-deprecating, and deliberately underplayed—rather than as literal autobiography. The humor depends on the audience’s familiarity with the stock claim “one drink gets me drunk,” which Burns then subverts by implying he has already had many drinks and can’t recall which one “did it.”

Burns’s line is a classic piece of self-deprecating show-business humor built on reversal. It begins with the seemingly modest claim that he has a low tolerance—“only one drink”—then undercuts it by implying he has already had so many that he can’t recall which number finally tips him into drunkenness. The joke plays on selective memory, denial, and the social ritual of drinking, presenting excess as a comic foible rather than a moral failing. It also fits Burns’s stage persona: wry, unflappable, and candid about human weaknesses, using understatement and timing to turn a potentially dark subject into a punchline.

1) “It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.”
2) “It only takes one drink to get me drunk—the trouble is I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.”
3) “It takes one drink to get me drunk; I just can’t remember whether it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.”