the joke's on you

There's a guy on campus named James that delivers mail to everyone in their departments, labs, or wherever. He's not a very smart guy, which can be seen through his socal skills. Allow me to explain.

James learns a new joke every day that he tells to everyone that he delivers mail to. They are nice, clean little jokes such as:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A: To get to the other slide!

This seems quaint and cute and a nice little detail of everyday life, but life simply isn't always a fucking Norman Rockwell cartoon. James chooses to complicate things a bit.

First of all, he will NOT leave your lab or office until he tells you the joke. Also, he won't tell you that he even has the joke to tell. So you have to sit there awkwardly, wondering why he doesn't leave. He just stands there watching you work, staring. Eventually you remember to ask him if he's heard any good jokes lately, at which point he tells you, absorbs your forced laughter and continues on with his deliveries.

However, if you are, let's say, new to the department and don't know this guy, you're in for some fun. James will stay there and stay there, and hopefully someone who knows the situation will walk by and glance in, asking James if he knows a good joke and relieving you from the awkwardness. Otherwise, he will stare and stare and stare while you try to look as busy and occupied as you can, or try to find an excuse to leave the room.

This, I feel, is a complex allegory that James places on the world. Like some kind of genius Batman villain, his pseudo-superpower (oh wait, Joker is already taken. shit.) is jokes that he dispenses on a regular basis, while playing a joke on everyone and punishing them for being scientists that actually do things for society, while he is stuck moving boxes all day. Rather than a roaming simpleton, James is a diabolical madman, bent on destroying scientific research as we know it! We have to plot something to stop this man, once we can figure out a way to make him leave the room so he doesn't hear us.