Wait I Always Forget The Punchline...

I'm one of those people who makes excessively broad generalizations all the time about large groups of people, in an attempt to seem "observant" and "insightful". For the most part, I try to do it in a humorous way, so people will buy into my bullshit. (As an aside, I think that's why a lot of people have blogs.)
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Anyways, some generalizations people buy, and some spark heated debate. There's one, though, that never seems to lead to any debate, and is just unanimously agreed upon: women aren't funny. That's a bit imprecise - I suppose what I mean is that women can't tell jokes, and they can't retell funny stories very well. (A quick disclaimer that shouldn't be necessary but I know it is: I do know some funny women. But they are a tiny minority. There's exceptions to any rule.) There's a spectrum here - some women are borderline okay, but some women I know are colossally bad, and when they start telling a story, I'm already laughing because I know how bad the retelling is going to be.
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"OH MY GOD Eric - Did I tell you what happened the other day with Jamie?"
"No, what happened?"
"OH MY GOD it was sooooo funny! So Jamie and I were going to Devin's party but Jamie wanted to stop beforehand and pick up some candy, you know like she loves eating those like round things, you know..."
"What?"
"You know, they're like round and different colors, and they're all nasty but Jamie eats them?"
"Uh, Life Savers?"
"No those are good - come on you know what I'm talking about, they're like hard, but a little chewy..."
"Spree?"
"Yeah Spree."
"Um, okay."
"Okay so anyways Jamie wanted some Spree so we stopped at the grocery store and we go inside and we get to the cashier and I forget exactly what Jamie said but it was REALLY funny like she didn't even know she had said it but it sounded dirty and HAHA it was SOO funny."
"Wait, you don't know what she said?"
"No, I'm trying really hard to remember but I can't."
"Oh."
"Yeah!"
"Guess I had to be there."
"Yeah, I guess so."
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The above didn't happen, but something in this vein seems to happen nonstop. Thing is, I don't "need" to be there - if it's a guy, he can quickly distill for me why something was funny - if it is impossible to describe, he probably just won't tell me. I only need to be there when a girl is trying to retell the story.
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Girls certainly have a very good sense of humor. They know when things are funny, they laugh all the time, they enjoy comedies - so I'm confused as to why they would be so bad at jokes and funny stories. I floated the question to a bunch of people (male and female - by the way, not a single person doubted for an instant the premise of the question) and got a number of interesting and valid answers.
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The first (and most popular) theory was that it's all about the way girls socialize. When guys are together, they crack jokes nonstop, but women only gossip or discuss actual life issues. Basically, "we're not funny because we don't practice enough".
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A second theory was a semi-genetic one. Jackie made a good point to me -while I am at any given point thinking zero to one thoughts in my head, many girls are simultaneously thinking about five or six things. (Jackie actually only discovered girls do this a few years ago, and became worried when she realized she normally thought about nothing). So there just isn't room in the brain to be making witty comments all the time. "We're just not wired that way".
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The other most popular theory was a sexual selection one. Girls aren't funny because they don't need to be funny to attract guys. I think an interesting observation here is that many successful female stand-up comedians are lesbians, from Ellen DeGeneres to Margaret Cho to Paula Poundstone and (stretching the definition of stand-up comedian here) Rosie O'Donnell. Of course, guys aren't less funny around guys, so it's not like the quality exists solely to impress girls.
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I don't really have a grand conclusion here. I actually delayed writing this post trying to think of some conclusion. I'll keep an open mind on this one, and hopefully I will reach some kind of conclusion soon. Because it truly does pain me that something exists that I am unable to make a broad, sweeping generalization about.