Our eldest son is extremely smart and sarcastic, is an avid movie fan, and loves puns. Not all of his romantic interests have been able to keep up with him and/or did not appreciate his… um… uniqueness. We knew his latest girlfriend was a keeper when the following happened.

We were discussing a movie that we felt had some technical mistakes. Our son said something about CGI effects and ended by exclaiming, “Even the toes were digital!”

His girlfriend immediately said, “All toes are digital.”

I don’t know if we laughed harder at her pun or at the look on our son’s face.

(My husband and I have the worst sense of humor. I am at my dad’s place helping to convert a bedroom into an office. The bedroom was used to house a renter a couple of months back, and my dad has been known to bring in interesting characters. While cleaning, I discover an odd article of clothing hanging in the closet that I don’t recognize. I pull it out, and, upon further inspection, I realize that what I thought was a top is actually a pair of black, peekaboo-level, fancy underwear. Horrified, I talk to my dad about it, and he says he believes it belonged to a renter, but to throw it away as the chances of being able to return it are pretty slim. About an hour later, I’m making German dumplings because I’m trying to make the family recipe gluten-free so my husband and I can have it together. My dad hates dumplings, so once I’m done, I end up throwing away the mix and dumplings that didn’t work. As I do so, I see the underwear. I head to the living room where my dad is watching TV.)

Me: “I hope no one is coming back for that underwear.”

Dad: “Why?”

Me: “Because I just took a dumpling on ’em!”

(Cue the groans of horror and disgust. On the bright side, my husband was quite proud of me for my negative-level quality of a joke! I definitely chose a good man!)

(I’m at rehearsal for my college’s jazz band. It’s toward the end of rehearsal and we are about two-thirds of the way through sight-reading our last piece of music for the night. Suddenly the bassist stops playing. Once the director notices, he cuts us off.)

Director: “What’s up, [Bassist]?”

Bassist: “I don’t have the last page.”

Director: “What?”

Bassist: “I don’t have the final page of the music.”

Director: “Hmm…”

Bassist: “I’ll try to get by without it; could you give me some of the chords?”

(I usually stand next to the bassist. There’s an extension cord laying on the ground by my feet, so I pick it up and hand it to him.)

Me: “Here’s a cord.”

(The entire band begins to groan at my terrible pun, but the bassist just stares at me with a confused look on his face.)

Bassist: “Okay?

(We start getting ready to play again, and then, right as the director is about to count us off…)

Bassist: “Ohhh! I did not get that until just now.”

(This happens to my dad when he is going back to nursing school in his sixties — a story in itself! One time a senior nursing instructor visits the class to give a “very important” presentation. This happens in the late 2000s, and both bird flu and swine flu are of major concern at the time as potential pandemics.)

Senior Instructor: *solemnly, and with a completely straight face* “I need to teach you how to recognize the difference between swine flu and bird flu. If it’s bird flu, you need a tweetment. If it’s swine flu, you need an oinkment!”

(The entire class just about busted a gut laughing. My dad said in his entire time in nursing school, this particular instructor was always taciturn and businesslike and NEVER showed this sort of levity, except on this one remarkable occasion.)

(One of my students is autistic. His mother puts him in swimming lessons because of his bad motor skills. He fits nicely into the group of children who are neurotypical. They all accept that he always goes last and always triple-asks what the assignment is. He doesn’t get jokes or wordplays, and we need to explain things in a scientific way, such as mentioning the angle that’s best to hold his limbs — numbers included! Today, at the end of the class:)

Student: “My heart is racing!”

(“Heart” in Dutch is “Hart.” It sounds the same as the English word.)

Me: “That’s because you swam so hard today.”

(“Hard” in Dutch is “Hard,” sounding the same as the Dutch word for “Heart.”)

Student: “Yes, I… Heart! Hard! I get it! I get it!” *runs to another teacher* “Teacher, teacher! My heart is racing… because I swam so hard!”

(He then proceeded to go to each and every teacher to tell his wordplay joke. We collectively thought it was utterly adorable.)