Purple (or Pink) Passion

It was a joke, one of those segmented, or serial, anecdotal recitations which narrates several, even more than that, adventures of a youth's search for the meaning of a a mysterious phrase, which ultimately culminates in the punchline.  Ta-dah!  Mission accomplished.  Or so one might think.  But if the joke is being relayed through uncle to nephew to mother, it's not as simple a process as you might expect.  First, the mother is in a hurry.  The son doing the narration of the joke does not want to omit a single syllable of what was told to him, and the story is quite lengthy--one of those ongoing quests where the outcome seems obvious, especially after the fourth or fifth installment.  What takes even longer is the mother's  interrupting with repeated admonitions to get to the point, we're in a hurry.  Finally, finally, the end of the joke, punchline delivered!  But no laugh, not even a chuckle for this budding deliverer of comedic schtick.  Instead the comment, "I hate that kind of joke, and I can't believe that "D." told you that.  He always hated that kind of thing too, anything with a refrain.  He couldn't even stand listening to Old McDonald Had A Farm when he was a kid."   For the rest of the story, and to learn the moral, ask a kid named  "B."  But be prepared; it does take a while.