Salt Lake City -- Meghan Marriott is a nice young Mormon woman, and she's got a joke. She looks around, and when the coast is clear, fires away: "How do you know that you're at a Mormon wedding?"
She pauses. "Because the mother of the bride is pregnant."
Ba-da-boom. That's Mormon humor for you. Clean. Sober. And, in a big surprise to those unfamiliar with Mormons -- self-deprecating. It's the surprise of the Mormon makeover now under way at the Olympics: that Mormons can laugh at themselves.
That ability has made some Mormon trappings at the Games almost hip. The most popular pin at the Olympics is a dish of green Jell-O, a favorite dessert in many Mormon families. Street value: $200.
"A lot of people in Utah don't get out to see the world," said 23-year-old Hans Bremer, a Mormon who was born and raised in Salt Lake. "So the world came to Utah. The Olympics has helped. We've been able to laugh at ourselves a little."
Ask a Mormon for a joke and you get three. About themselves, mostly. They will be cornier than the jokes Grandpa gets pity laughs from, but be careful if you try the same -- you could find yourself drowning in a sea of Jell-O, as one Denver scribe did the other day.
It's a far cry from what many expected to see in Salt Lake. Before the Games came dire warnings that this would be the Mormon Olympics. That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was licking its proselytizing chops at the chance to convert the tens of thousands of visitors coming to Utah.
It hasn't happened. Before the Games, church leaders went out of their way to say there would be no proselytizing, and that has held true. Passers-by are more likely to have a Baptist hand them a free package of tissues and Band- Aids -- and a religious pamphlet.
But a Mormon? If you start up a conversation with an LDS person inside Temple Square here, then, sure, you could be there for hours trying to escape his web. But outside the gates, they're not going to bother you. Not during the Olympics at least. Might even have a joke.
John Alpin's got one. The 39-year-old Mormon from suburban West Jordan looks around, then fires away: "Why do Mormons stop having kids at 35?" Pause. "Because 36 is too many."
FAMILY NIGHT FUN
They joke about their large families, the strain of coffee- and booze-free living, about Utah's proliferation of minivans, or "Mormon Assault Vehicles" as they're known around here. They riff about how Monday night is designated to be Family Home Evening, but it often ends up in "Family Night at the Fights" chaos.
Since they can't curse, they goof about how lame their curses are. "Fetching" passes for an F-bomb here in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains.
They gleefully mock the blandness of their cuisine. Mormons smile knowingly at each other when they talk about the red punch (a.k.a. "Red Death") and cookies that are invariably served at church functions. They roll their eyes and grin at the mention of "funeral potatoes" -- the artery-popping casserole that mourners bring to the grieving family.
A woman who asked to be in the Mormon Recipe Protection Program giggled as she recited the ingredients to her famous "pretzel salad." If Wolfgang Puck could hear how she combines two cups of crushed pretzels, a tub of Cool Whip and a package of raspberry Jell-O, he'd curl into a weepy ball.
Unless he found it funny.
Yet other Olympic visitors haven't pounced on the goofy Mormon humor T- shirts at the Souvenir Shop at Temple Square, one of the city's best repositories of Mormon gag gifts around. It's a small shop.
FASHION STATEMENTS
Inside are T-shirts like one featuring an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike dressed in the black-suit-and-white-shirt uniform of a Mormon missionary. He's "The Mormonator." The shirt reads, "Don't think you can get rid of him by pretending you're not home. 'I'll be back.' "
Bremer is in the store, laughing at a T-shirt that says, "Church basketball:
The brawl that started with a prayer."
"Oh, man, that's hilarious," Bremer says. "Anyone who's ever played church basketball knows that's so true. I laugh at that every time."
It's a Mormon thing. You might not understand.
Not everything is fair game. The church fired back last week when a Denver columnist ripped Mormons and Utah, calling the Olympics a "massive Mormon marketing scheme," threw in the requisite polygamy joke and complained about religious pamphlets constantly being thrust at visitors. Two days later, columnist Woody Paige apologized, calling his piece "satire that didn't work." The church backed off -- and angry Utahans sent Paige a truckload of Jell-O boxes.
Salt Lake City's mayor, a lapsed Mormon, held a joke contest last week to show the world that Utahans can laugh at themselves. The No. 1 gut-buster was a polygamy joke. A press aide said, "Remember, they weren't judged by the mayor's office."
BREW HA-HA
And the church isn't too fond of Wasatch Beer, the Park City brewer of Polygamy Porter. The beer's motto: "Why have just one? Bring some home to the wives." Wasatch memorabilia sales have gone through the roof during the Olympics. And so have some LDS members.
"We've got some firm believers who don't think it's too funny," said LDS spokesman Keith Atkinson. "But we have some people who don't have a problem with it. There's a line with any humor. When you start to be sacrilegious, or dirty, then that's a problem."
Mormons say you don't have to endorse their beliefs to share a laugh. That is, if you get the joke. As he stood looking at the Olympic Flame one night recently, 17-year-old Shaun Curtis from suburban Draper had one:
A young Mormon was on his mission, carrying the Book of Mormon in his coat pocket when he was shot. Fortunately, the bullet lodged in the book and saved him. "See," the missionary said, "that bullet couldn't get through Second Nephi either."
Curtis and his pals are roaring.
Thank you, Utah, and good night. Don't forget to have another glass of red punch, and tip your waitress.
E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.