Buttock 19

“Hey girls,” I say with zestful excitement as we’re pulling out of the dry cleaner’s parking lot, “did you hear they just discovered a new ice planet just outside Pluto’s orbit?”

“No!” Little One cries.  She loves Pluto and all things Plutonian.  She’s in the Not-a-Planet camp; I’m a firm Pluto-is-a-Planet man, so we frequently and playfully butt heads over the frozen world’s status.  “Really?”

“Yes, and do you know what they named it?”

“What!?  What?!”

I deviously pause to heighten the tension before the punchline:  “Buttock 19.”

They hesitate – but just for a brief instant before they realize it’s a bad Dad joke.  “It’s true!  It’s true!” I say, but perhaps my laughter at their grumpy, betrayed faces belies my protestations. 

“No it’s not!”

“Yeah.  It’s true.  Isn’t amazing that they decided to name a planet in our Solar System Buttock 19?”

They’re not buying it, but I’m giving myself a grand old time.

“But that’s not the most amazing thing of all,” I continue, trying again to lure them in.  “You know what is?”

“What?”

Again the devious pause:

“There’s eighteen other objects in the Solar System named Buttock.”

Ah, I kill myself …