The other night my 12-year-old son — truly a rara avis — and I watched an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos that featured practical jokes. Of course, many of the clips entailed someone getting the bejesus scared out of them.

Tuesday night, my son was alone at home for about an hour. Apparently he saw an news story about the tragic death of Michael Downing who accidentally stabbed himself through the heart while cooking lunch for his sons.

You may be able to see where this is going.

So, my wife came home Tuesday evening to find our son sprawled in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor with a knife laying on the floor beside him.

Luckily for both of them, she immediately spotted the tube of fake blood (left over from Halloween) laying on the floor also.

I can’t imagine where he gets his humor.

Here’s the middle school joke of the day, courtesy of my son.

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

I heard this joke many years ago, but last week I was reminded of it and told it to someone. Lo and behold, today I log onto my Google home page and was presented with the joke of the day.

An old geek joke says there are 10 types of people in the world.

Those that understand binary and those that don’t.

The same can be said of this shirt.