When I was still doing my undergrad, I made friends with a rather interesting New Mexican fellow who was awfully fond of puns. In fact, he was relentless. We would often go head to head until one of us (usually me) would run out of decent puns and have to quit. Chris told me that I would have to work on it, and eventually some day, I might earn my Bachelor's degree in Punmanship, the field in which he had apparently already earned advanced degrees. A BP degree, as I learned from him, could only be conferred by one with at least that status themselves (or higher), and since he was the only MP (Master in Punmanship) that I knew, my degree would have to be awarded by him.

As I quickly found out, Bachelor of Punmanship degrees don't just grow on trees, and numerous times throughout the year I thought that for sure I had it licked and that surely I would impress my "prof" sufficiently to earn my degree. Unfortunately, I always seemed to fall just a bit short or not quiiiiite get to that point that Chris would be awed by my mastery of the spoken word.

Well, after much time and study, the mixed chorus of which we were both members, went on tour of Southern British Columbia. We went from town to town, singing concerts and getting billeted by the local townsfolk for just about a week, if I remember correctly. Well, I forget which town we were in, as they all just seem to meld one into another after a while, but all I remember is that both Chris and I were billeted in the same home, with an otherwise normal family, but who owned a little, white toy poodle. His name was Nippy, which seemed to make sense as he would tremble as he growled and tried to bite chunks out of any appendage that would be unfortunate enough to fall within his reach... A perfectly horrible, vicious, little beast he was. Then again, I've never gotten along with poodles -- we shared a long, tortured enmity, and Nippy was no exception.

As we got up early the next morning, we packed our bags and got ready for our billet family to take us to the rendezvous where we would repeat our daily ritual and hop on the buses to start out for the next town on our route. I was the first one out the door of the house, bags ready and waiting as Chris was tying his shoes in the doorway.

Nippy had followed me outside, and by some strange enigma of nature had grown used to me enough overnight that he was now underfoot and had stopped taking aim at my fingers.

Chris glanced up at me standing outside as he casually asked how the weather was on this fine, B.C. morning. I paused, waited for him to look back at me, and as he did, my eyes shot down towards the small dog at my feet, then back at Chris.

Without flinching or batting an eyelid, with the driest tone of voice I could muster, announced: "A little Nippy out..."

Chris stared at me deadpan for only about a second. He looked at the dog, then back at me, picked up his bags and smartly walked outside to where I was standing. He extended his arm to me, inviting me to shake it. As I did, without changing his expression and matching my own dry tone from before, broke the silence,

"Congratulations. You've just earned your Bachelor of Punmanship."