The other day, I saw this guy back from college. He was a complete nerd back then, you know the type that was all serious and boring. He did all the homework, sat in the first bench, mugged for GRE and always got the first rank. Someone once asked him “Why don’t you skip homework one day?”. Dude thought it was a joke.
So, when I saw him, I thought it might be good to talk to him to see if anything has changed after so many years. I walked up to him and said Hi.

Dude: “Oh! It’s you.”
Me: “Yeah. How have you been? What’s happening?”
Dude: “I’m here to present a paper on nano-physical-biology at the World Tech Conference.”
Me: “Yeah, that must be nice. The thing I love the most is the free biscuits they give out at these conferences…”
Dude looks at me weirdly.
Dude: “Anyway, what have you been up to?”
Me: “The usual. Oh, I’m writing a blog these days!”
Dude: “How quaint!”
Me: “Thanks?”
Mental note to self: Look up meaning of ‘quaint’.
Dude: “So what have you published?”
Me: “Lots of stories actually. I write humor”
Dude: “Can I see some of your work?”

He was finally getting interested in my blog. I decided I’ll tell him a joke.

Me: “Sure. So this one time, a Zebra and a Chicken are trying to cross the road…”
Dude: “Which road?”
Me: “Eh? M.G. Road maybe. Doesn’t matter. Some road.”
Dude: “OK. Proceed.”
Me: “They’re trying to cross the road, but there is traffic. So the Zebra says ‘Let’s cross the road over there, because there is a Zebra Crossing there’ ..hehehe…”
Dude: “OK?”
Telling this guy a joke is like trying to teach a pig how to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. I decide to press on with the joke anyway.
Me: “…hehe…and then the Chicken says ‘No, I want to cross here’. Then the Zebra says ‘I’ll eat you’…hehe…”
Dude: “um…hmm…”
Me: “…and then the Chicken flies across the road and says ‘Come on, run across. What are you, Chicken?’…hehohahaha…”
Dude: “OK.”
Maybe I should have explained to him before I started that I was telling a joke. There is silence as I try to figure out how to explain to him that the joke is over and he’s supposed to laugh now. This is really embarrassing. I’m laughing at my own jokes while this joker is staring at me.

Dude: “I don’t think Chicken can fly that far.”
Me: “Look, it was a small road, OK?”
Dude: “Why does the Zebra want to eat the Chicken? Zebras are vegetarian.”
This guy is totally irritating me.
Me: “Look. It’s my zebra. He was schizophrenic or something. He felt like eating Chicken.”
Dude: “I don’t understand your alleged joke. Your Chicken hypothesis is inconsistent.”

That’s it. This Dude was asking for it.

Me: “Yes, I know you’ve always had trouble with the chicks. Chicks don’t like micro-physical things, man. Maybe if you didn’t focus on your zebra so much, you might actually cross the road one day.”
Dude: “What?”
Me: “Have a good day!”
And I walked off…

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