I went to high school with...

The funniest joke I have is “I went to high school with a guy/girl named _____________.” That’s really all I’ve got.

Ordinary conversation will inevitably pair words together that could pass for a name. For instance, a kid may say, “I forgot my gym clothes.” Like John Nash’s numerical pattern detection in A Beautiful Mind, I automatically hear the words as a name. I will say, “I went to a high school with a kid named Jim Cloze.” Then I’ll fictionalize a one-sentence biography. “He ran the third leg of the 4 x 100 relay on our track team—fast kid.” If you don’t think that’s funny, neither does Teri. She hasn’t laughed at this type of joke since 1997—and then it was out of dating obligation. Since that laughter, I’ve told such jokes as frequently as the Pirates have lost games. And in response—if Teri is that audience—crickets.

After grocery shopping, Teri told the boys that she got—among other things whose names could not pass for classmates—Colby Jack cheese. On cue, I said, “I went to high school with a kid named Colby Jack-Cheez. I knew him in elementary school as Colby Jack, but his mother re-married a Dr. Cheez when he was in high school. Not wanting to relinquish his birth name, but wanting to comply with his mother’s wishes, he became Colby Jack-Cheez.” I found it hilarious. And I often find the silence that follows equally hilarious. But today was different. My boys were laughing. I mean laughing. Clearly, they couldn’t have followed the name change due to re-marriage, but they were laughing. Teri, unsmiling, turned from the passenger’s seat and said, “Well, you’ve got your audience.”

I’ve got my audience. Just wait until one of them says, “I need to go potty.”

I went to high school with a girl named Anita Gopottee. She…”