A woman once interrupted our (already nine-hour) application class to ask me, "Do you know what barium is?" I nodded. "I think it's an earth metal," I said, "I had to drink a whole milkshake of it once." She paused. "No, it's a joke," she said. "The answer is 'what you do after someone dies.'"

"Huh," I said. "How often do people say that they know what barium is and ruin the joke?" She gave me a look of resignment. "All the time."

Man, that's perseverance. Get this woman a cancer research lab, she's clearly in the wrong line of work.