So I had dinner with my parents and brother tonight, and the conversation somehow got to the idea of having a "birthday squared." Basically, you take the date of your birthday and convert it into a number between 1-365 with January 1, being 1, Jan. 2-- 2 &c. Then you square it and that number is your birthday^2. Of course, you need an alternate calendar or something of that sort to deal with results over 365, but that's not too difficult.

So the joke comes in when I suggest that you have to give someone gifts^2 for the birthday^2, i.e. if you give someone 2 chocolates on their birthday, you have to give him 4 on their birthday^2. Everyone says the disadvantage to this is that people will either give no presents for a birthday or give things only in quantities of one to avoid giving a lot on birthday^2.

Then my dad says: "No! the smart thing to do is give someone an imaginary present on their birthday, and then you get to take one present away from them on their birthday^2!"

That's a pretty clever joke, with a horribly complicated setup

Yeah, funny, and what Stewart said.

But eh, your family is seriously messed up dude. I mean, there's sports, American Idol, waterboarding, Susan Boyle, etc. etc. to talk about, and you choose this?