Moving at the Speed of Hilarious

How fast does a good evil joke travel? On September 11, 1982 the wife of former Chicago Cubs pitching sensation Milt Papas disappeared. He was a local celeb due to the fact that his no-hitter in 1973 was one of a few bright spots in what otherwise was a mundane century of Chicago baseball. Five years later authorities discovered that she accidentally drove her car into a suburban-Chicago retention pond and drowned.

I lived in the Chicago area and phoned a local radio station with a joke. I was on hold forever...

Finally local shock-jock Steve Dahl picked up and I asked, "How are Milt Papas and his wife alike?"

There was a pause of uncomfortable anticipation. The DJ asked hesitantly, "How?"

"They both had a nasty sinker!"

The airwaves were dead for about three laborious seconds before he erupted into laughter.

Less than three minutes later the phone rang at home and my mom started laughing. It turns out that my uncle almost drove his car off the road from the joke, he called my dad (no cell phones either- he had to find a pay phone, it was that funny) and my dad called my mom. My mother told me the joke, getting from my mouth through airwaves and phone lines and back to my ear in under 5 minutes.

The best part is, the joke was archived and played repeatedly on the show. It was so awesomely offensive because it centered off of a Chicago baseball legend/local treasure.

To this day, it remains one of my most potently inappropriate punchlines.