I believe there are two kinds of funny.

The first is “Funny Ha Ha Ha!” This is the stuff that, in a flash, reduces you to hilarity.

A perfect example for me is Mel Brooks’ movies. They’re anything for a laugh — puns, sight gags, slapstick goofs, weird anachronisms and out-of-context incongruities. For the last one, if a Sioux raiding party speaking Yiddish isn’t incongruous, I dunno what is.

Labels aside, I see his flicks and I fall out laughing, clear proof of F H H H!

Then there’s “Funny, Hmm …” This is a peculiar kind of funny that elicits frowns or Huhs or puzzled head shakes instead of laughs. Sometimes, the event is so bizarre, it even causes a tear or two. One example: A doctor tells his patient his ulcer was caused by all the herbal supplements he was taking to get rid of his heartburn.

Even better (or worse, depending on how you look at it): A society matron, Evelyn Peabody Bradford, is the daughter of William Bradford XII, a direct descendant of the William Bradford of Mayflower fame. Thus Ole Evie is, by an accident of birth, a member of the Mayflower Society, the DAR, and all sorts of other exclusive and insufferably snotty organizations. And she loves to tell anyone within earshot about her fine breeding and elevated status.

Then, to reinforce the blueness of her blood, she joins 23 and Me. And when she does, she finds out, due to an accident of conception, her biological father is not William Bradford XII of the Mayflower Bradfords, but his supposedly loyal butler, Watson Martin (nee Warcislaw Marciniac). And suddenly, good Ole Evie goes, symbolically, from dining with the gods, to scrubbing their crappers. Clearly, “Funny, Hmm …” At least to her. “Funny Ha Ha Ha!” to me, and I’m sure many others.

Of course, funny, like time, is a relative issue. What might make you fall on the floor and wet your pants laughing, might not get a chuckle out of your sister … and might get a scolding from your mother.

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Hoist by my own petard

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On an April Thursday, at the tender age of 7, I learned about The Great Divide of Funnies the hard way, in Mrs. Smith’s second grade class.

A note of clarification: Two Mrs. Smiths taught grade school. One was Merle Smith; the other was Ruth Smith, and the only thing they had in common were their last names. Merle Smith was a peach, a sweet, well-loved and excellent teacher. And as a follow-up, she’s still a delight.

Ruth Smith was a hard-a**ed taskmaster. If she had an educational philosophy, it was based on the principles of Genghis Khan and could be stated as, “Shed no tears, take no prisoners, and leave all the structures in ashes.”

Not that she was a bad teacher — in fact, she was a good one. But if you think of the kindly, warm-hearted spinster schoolmarm of Norman Rockwell paintings, think again. She was thin — all right angles and sharp edges — and I can’t remember her cracking so much as a nano-smile. My mother, who knew her fairly well, said she had a sense of humor — it was just very dry. That may have been true, but the word I’d use to describe her humor wasn’t dry, but evaporated.

Anyhow, on that fateful Thursday morning, on the first floor of the Petrova school, Mrs. Smith was taking attendance. When she called out Jerry’s name, there was no Jerry. This was rare, if not unique, because Jerry never missed a class.

“Where’s Jerry?” Mrs. Smith asked.

I saw my chance and pounced.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” I said.

“Haven’t heard what?” she said.

“Last night Jerry tried to burn down the Army-Navy Store,” I said. “So they sent him away to reform school.”

Now a word about Jerry. He was the town’s equivalent of The Christ Child. Not only had he never committed any act of rascality — I doubt he’d ever even thought about such a thing. His school attendance wasn’t the only thing about him that was perfect; it seemed that everything about him was. And thus Mrs. Smith’s shock was exponentially greater than if she’d heard any of the rest of us urchins had indulged our pyromaniacal impulses.

“What did you say?” said Mrs. Smith, obviously gobsmacked.

I repeated myself.

Then I waited a few seconds for the impact to fully dawn on the old girl. When I was sure it had, I hit her with the line I figured would send her and everyone else to paroxysms of hilarity.

“April Fool’s!” I shouted ever-so-cheerily.

There was no hilarity. There wasn’t even a laugh, a chuckle, or a snicker. In fact, the room fell completely silent.

The reason it did, of course, was that Mrs. Smith, there in the front of the room, had shape-shifted. She was no longer just a skinny old lady. She shot up to at least 6’6″, filled out to 220, had horns and fangs, and steam poured out of her ears.

She pointed her right index talon at me, and with her left eye closed, stared through me with her right, not through a lens on wire rim glasses, but through the scope on a sniper rifle.

My blood drained, my heart stopped, my mouth went dry, and I sat there, paralyzed. I would’ve wet my pants, except at that moment every sphincter in my body had slammed shut.

Then in a low slow hiss she said, “Don’t … you … Ever … do …

Anything … like … that … again!”

I can’t remember a single thing after that. I’m sure the memory could be recovered in hypnotherapy, but if so, I still don’t wanna know any part of it.

I said Mrs. Smith was a good teacher, and she was. She was so good, she taught me one lesson I never forgot: In the 70 years since that day, I have never played one April Fool’s prank.

Not that I haven’t thought about them — I have. Actually, every year I think about doing them, and will even think what specific joke I’ll pull and on whom. On the night of March 31, I go over it a bunch of times, and go to sleep looking forward to finally eradicating my second grade failure from the record.

Then, on the 1st, just as I’m about to put my fiendish plan in action, out of nowhere an image flashes in my mind.

It’s Mrs. Smith. Her sniper rifle finger points directly at my heart, her death ray stare drills a hole in my psyche. Once again, as on that day in ’54, I’m transfixed, helpless, and in a cold sweat.

That feeling lasts for maybe 10 seconds — though it seems like 10 days.

Then when it lifts, and my pulse, breathing, and brain function return, I shake my head and say to myself, sometimes even aloud, “Uh-uh, Dopey Boy, not this year.”