The Bad Joke

"I don't get it'" said the shaggy-haired young man everyone knew as Thad, but who was named Steven. "Why is the homeless guy buying a decent meal with the money he got from the businessman a punchline to a joke?"

Gary looked at his friend quizzically. "That's not the punchline to the joke Thad. The punchline is what the homeless man says in reply to the businessman's questioning him about being in such a nice restaurant for a meal after he just gave him fifty dollars." 

"Well, it doesn't make sense. You start the joke saying a homeless guy walks up to a businessman and tells him a sob-story about being destitute and the businessman being so moved by the story that he gives him fifty dollars, and then the businessman sees the homeless guy in a nice restaurant eating a meal and the businessman is put off by that for some reason? So he scolds the homeless guy for taking the fifty dollars and going to a nice restaurant, and the homeless guy replies that before he had met the businessman he didn't have any money and couldn't afford a decent meal, and then he gets fifty dollars and can finally afford a decent meal, but then the businessman sees him eating the meal and scolds him for it, so he asks the businessman that if now isn't the time for him to be buying a decent meal, when would be the time he should be buying a decent meal?" That's the punchline? Again, I don't get it - how is that the punchline?"

Gary looked at Thad for a long minute and then said, "Forget it, Man, the cultural divide is greater than I had imagined."