Tom agrees to be admitted to a mental asylum to avoid a goal term, and he befriends Sam who did the same thing. He sits there, when suddenly someone yells out: “Twenty three”, and with that all the patients start laughing.
Someone responds: “Seventy two”, and they all laugh even louder.
Tom asks Sam: “What gives with calling a number and everyone laughs?”
Sam responds: “Most of these guys have been in here so long that they have heard every joke there is to tell, so rather than tell them again they have given every joke a number. Just observe …”
Sam shouts: “Forty six?” A huge laughter follows. Sam says: “You try it.”
Tom thinks about it,. And then shouts: “Seventeen.”
Nothing. No laughter. Not even a cough. Tom says: “Hey, what gives?”
And Sam says: “It was the way you told the joke.”