Thanks.
Sometimes I think I fall into the trap that one town did in the old joke, to wit:
A traveler stopped at a country cafe / bar / honky took out in a VERY rural area to eat dinner before setting out on the long road again.
The place was surprisingly packed for such a sparsely populated area so he had to eat at the bar. As he got his burger, a truly impressive affair for so little cash, one of the yokels announced that it was open mic comedy night and introduced the first up, a shy and lovely young lady whom he called a mic night virgin.
She waved and giggled a bit before timidly saying: “31.” and the place roared with guffaws. Encouraged she rattled off the more numbers to even more laughs before leaving the stage in triumph.
And leaving the traveler thoroughly flummoxed.
The next two acts were the same, just calling out numbers and people laughing.
The man got the bartender’s atrention and asked.
“It’s mic night.” he explained.
“But they’re just calling out numbers?”
“Oh! Oh, oh, yeah, got you ... I thought you were a new face. No, you see, we all know all the jokes anyone knows here so they’ve just become numbers. Say a number and we know the joke.”
“REALLY?”
“Really, really.”
So with that info he asked the bartender to watch his burger and he went to talk to the MC.
In short order he was standing before the crowd, eager to pull one over on the yokels.
“22.” he said confidently.
Crickets .. a cough.
The man slunk off the stage and came face to face with the MC.
“Is 22 a bad joke?”
“’Bout the funniest we know ... but, sir, you just can’t tell a joke. Totally butchered it.”
Totally killed it!