March 8, 2001, Mount Vernon, Illinois: In a move one source called "simple genius", Dan Barker achieved a new level of humor in his everyday jesting and joking by reintroducing a basic anatomical term into his peer-group’s vernacular yesterday. Barker, a Junior at Mt. Vernon Township Highschool, pulled off the unexpected verbal feat in the school cafeteria while eating lunch with several of his friends.
"We were sitting around eating and goofing off like we always do," Ross Blakemore reported this morning, "and there was kind of a lull in the conversation. Well, Dan looks up at me with this pained look on his face and says ‘man, I was getting out of the shower this morning and I stepped on my penis.’ It was all I could do not to shoot the mouthful of milk straight out my nose." Blakemore, a long-time friend of Barker’s and also a Junior at the local high school, added that, "everybody busted up when he said that. It was so funny."
Everyone in Barker and Blakemore’s peer group who witnessed the event, agreed that it was extremely funny, but they struggled to explain exactly why. Blakemore tried to expound on the humor of the situation by saying, "I mean, what Dan said was funny and all, but it was more how he said it, you know. If he had said ‘I stepped on my dick’, it just wouldn’t have had the same effect."
Josh Hinkley, another Junior who was seated at the table during the humorous announcement, agreed with Blakemore. "I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but it was so much funnier because he said ‘penis’. That’s not a word people our age use normally. It’s ‘uncool’, you know," the Junior said, putting his fingers up to make little quote marks around the word.
"It’s not like we would normally giggle if someone said ‘penis’. I mean, we’re not immature like that, like Beavis and Butthead or something," Blakemore interjected.
"Right," Hinkley agreed. "That’s not what I’m saying at all. If Dan had just looked up and said ‘penis’, it wouldn’t have been funny. But the use of the term, which isn’t really common to hear coming form someone our age..." Here the young man paused, trying to gather his thoughts. "Okay, see, usually we say ‘dick’ or ‘pecker’ or something like that. Teachers and textbooks use the term ‘penis’ but we don’t. So when Dan said it during his joke, it just added that shock value to make a funny story downright hilarious."
Blakemore nodded in agreement and added, "oh my sides hurt after we finished laughing from that one. That’s definitely one of Dan’s best bits to date."
This morning, between classes, Barker responded to queries about his inspiration for the fictional anecdote. "I don’t really know how I came up with it," he said, shrugging. "It just kind of popped into my head, and I said it. I mean, I waited for the appropriate time to maximize the humor of it. We have this running game where I try to make Ross do a spit-take or shoot milk out his nose by surprising him while he has his mouth full. Somehow, I just knew that was a good one." As for why he chose the word ‘penis’ rather than a more age-typical slang term, Baker simply said, "I don’t know. It just felt right."
Asked if he had anything in store for today’s lunch, Dan responded, "No, not really. I’ll just see what happens. Spontaneity is one of the keys to good humor." Then he added, "although I do plan on introducing ‘smegma’ into our vocabulary in the next week or two. I figure we’ll get a lot of use out of ‘smegma’."