One day after gym class she emerges from the shower and notices a classmate with a big rash across her chest and stomach in the shape of the letter M.
"What happened to you?" Mary asks.
The girl gets a bit embarrassed but eventually confesses: "My boyfriend is a freshman at Michigan, he letters in football. Last night we got a little frisky while he had his letterman's sweater on.
Mary thinks nothing of this, but two weeks later, again after showering sees another classmate with the same M shaped rash.
This time Mary decides to have fun with her recent discovery and says to the girl, "Excuse me, but I'm psychic and I've sensed that you have a boyfriend that letters at Michigan"
The classmate says "close, except he goes to Wisconsin"
Joke Poo: The Geology Field Trip
Setting: A dusty geology field trip in the Nevada desert.
Characters: Brenda, a college freshman, and Karen, a seasoned senior geology major.
New Joke:
Brenda, a freshman on her first geology field trip, comes back from a particularly dusty dig site covered head-to-toe in grime. She sees Karen, a senior, sporting a bizarre, perfectly rectangular tan line across her back.
“Wow, Karen, what happened to your back?” Brenda asks, trying not to stare.
Karen sighs, looking sheepish, “Oh, that? Well, I was helping Professor Davies with a research project. He’s studying shale formations. Last night, we were mapping a particularly intricate sedimentary layer, and I got a little too into the layering process while wearing his geology-themed t-shirt with a diagram of sedimentary rock formation.”
Brenda shrugs it off. A few days later, after another dusty dig, she sees another student sporting the same rectangular tan line, but with faint lines of different colored sediment imprinted into the tan.
This time, Brenda can’t resist. Feeling like she’s cracked a geological code, she approaches the girl and says, “Excuse me, but I’m psychic, and I’ve sensed that you’ve been studying sedimentary rock layering… intimately.”
The classmate looks confused, then replies, “Kind of. Actually, he goes to MIT, and is studying circuit board designs.”
Alright, let’s dissect this joke and then spin it into something new.
Joke Breakdown:
- Setup: Establishes Mary, the setting (East Lansing high school, implying Michigan State University rivalry with the University of Michigan), and a strange recurring rash shaped like “M.”
- Punchline Trigger: The first girl’s explanation connects the rash to a letterman’s sweater from the University of Michigan.
- Misdirection: Mary assumes the rash is always caused by Michigan letterman sweaters.
- Punchline: The second girl’s boyfriend attends Wisconsin, disrupting the established pattern and highlighting Mary’s flawed logic. The humor comes from the absurdity of a Wisconsin “W” being mistaken for a Michigan “M” and that the action is happening.
- Underlying Themes: Teenage sexuality, inter-university rivalry, and a humorous misunderstanding.
Key Elements:
- Rivalry: Michigan vs. Michigan State (and, subtly, Wisconsin sneaks in there).
- Letterman Jacket: Symbolic of athleticism and university pride.
- Misinterpretation: Mary’s psychic “powers” are actually just observational errors.
- Absurdity: The mechanics of how the rash actually forms are never addressed and inherently funny.
Comedic Enrichment:
Let’s focus on the letterman jacket and the rash itself. Here’s a “Did You Know?” observation that could follow the joke:
“Did you know that the first letterman sweaters weren’t even for athletes? In the 1860s, Harvard baseball players embroidered a large ‘H’ onto their gray flannel shirts. The letter signified that they were on the team, and if they didn’t complete the season, they had to take the letter off. So, essentially, these girls are enduring a very visible penalty for poor performance in… other extracurricular activities. Makes you wonder what the Wisconsin equivalent would look like. Probably cheese-related.”
Alternate Joke Idea:
Mary runs into a third classmate after gym class, also sporting the “M” rash.
Mary, overconfident: “I know exactly what happened. Your boyfriend is a star athlete at Michigan, isn’t he?”
The girl sighs: “Not exactly. He’s on the debate team at Michigan State. Turns out those little MSU pins are really pointy.”