Specialized Humor

Our cousins and their children are the kind of fabulous family you’re excited are related to you, because it gives you a great excuse to hang out with them. John and Aditi are both economics professors at NYU, and they are charming, funny and brilliant. Their four-year-old twins are charming, funny, brilliant and bilingual. Because of Ishan and Ananya I know that “Nay” is the Hindi word for “No.”

They’re a family of good cooks and happy eaters, too. At a recent lunch in their home, the conversation continued nonstop, with everyone talking over each other and topics switching out faster than the corn, tomatoes and basil from Union Square market was disappearing.

That’s why I don’t really remember how we began talking about some joke involving division. It was right after Aditi offered Ananya some gazpacho (“Nay”) that I realized she was saying something about dividing twenty-five into twenty. John said that of course, the answer is zero.

“Zero?” I didn’t get it.

“You know, like if you have 20 over 25, you cancel out the twos,” Aditi said. “So you’re dividing five into zero. ” She said this in the tolerant tone of someone who’s hearing an old knock-knock joke for the umpteenth time.

Rob, Maggie and I must have looked confused, because Aditi explained, “You know, picture the fraction 20/25 and you draw a line through the twos….”

“So it’s like, math humor,” I ventured.

Well, obviously. So much for elementary-school fractions. Haw haw. I wondered, do all professions have their own inside jokes? Florists? Tax collectors? Funeral directors? The possibilities are endless.

Then we finished our gazpacho and went out for amazing ice cream. I had a scoop of fresh ginger and one of lichee. Ishan ate chocolate with multicolored sprinkles out of a cone. Whenever the ice cream mashed on his face was just about to drip off, he'd call out "Napkin!" My bag was on the floor next to him, and that night, I found some sprinkles in it.

All in all it was a delicious day. It was so delicious that when the person behind me in the ice-cream shop said something about her Diet Coke cancelling out the butterfat, I could even appreciate the nutritionist humor.