Humor City Origins

The Story of Humor City’s Invention

What do you call 1000 accounting teachers at the bottom of a lake? A great start.

Academically, marketing students often struggle with accounting and economics (as I’m sure the opposite is true). For me, there’s just something ghastly boring about these subjects in a classroom setting that makes my wandering business brain wander even more. As bad as micro-economics was for me (read teacher hate letter), it was my struggles with accounting that gave birth to Humor City.

One fateful day in 1985, armed with my very best cheat sheets, I found myself reading 6 accounting midterm exam questions over and over, slower and slower each time. With growing dread I began to realize this might be the first time ever I might not be able to even begin to start to answer even one question. This was bad.

Glancing up at the clock, then over at my girlfriend hunkered down at the desk beside me, just 10 minutes in I had to concede the total shut out had finally arrived. To burn time waiting for the girlfriend to finish, I decided to write out my board game idea.

As I wrote and wrote I soon ran out of paper, so I called out to the teacher, Miss Labonté, for more. As she nodded her approval at my industriousness, a diabolical plan suddenly sprang into my mind.

First step was to toss a note onto my girlfriend’s desk which read “Don’t move until I tell you and don’t ask any questions!” Two hours later when the teacher called time, the flood of exam papers dropping on her desk began.

Remaining seated with a half dozen other students who were desperately in need of more time, I held back until the teacher barked hard enough to make the laggards shuffle forward. It was here I turned to my girlfriend, exchanged her exam for the notes to Humor City, and whispered, “Take this and RUN.”

Walking up to the teacher and that growing pile of exams I said, “Excuse me ma’am. How do you spell Labonté? Is it T-A-Y?” “No (‘you idiot’ she almost said). I can’t believe it’s mid-term and you still don’t even know how to spell my name.” Fake writing on my exam and nodding while she spelled it, I tossed my girlfriend’s test onto the pile just in time for another to land directly on top of it. “Thanks Miss LA-BON-TAY”, I said burning the image of me handing in an exam into her mind while simultaneously planting a verbal trigger to harvest later.

Next class, as all the marked exams were handed back to everyone but me, pulling that l trigger I asked, “Hey! Where’s my exam Miss LA-BON-TAY?” Without even blinking she said, “In my office”. Returning after a quick ransacking during the break, with 100% confidence she said, “At my home.”

Next day, a very pale Miss Labonté walked in to class, pulled me aside and quietly said, “Oh my GOD! I’ve lost your exam.” Staring at her with big eyes full of hurt and surprise I asked, “Well, what are we going to do about that?” At the end of a fast negotiation, we agreed my mark would be based solely on the results of the final exam as long as we kept our little arrangement on the down low. Good enough for me.

Now, it’s here in my story I must admit that before writing I was sure I bombed that final exam so I could come clean here without exposing the technicality that could potentially cost me my college diploma. Checking the report card however, I somehow ended up with a “D”. My guess is Miss Labonté felt obligated to give me a pass as a pre-emptive measure against opening our dirty little secret. Poor woman. This joke is definitely on her.