“Do you drive a Beetle?” I asked.

“I’m just trying to drum up support,” he replied.

Lingo was one of my five adversaries in the preliminary round, which had two separate competitions of six contestants each.

Here’s how it works: A half-dozen punsters are given a topic and can write down their ideas on small whiteboards before Fred tells them to stop. Then he calls each one up to a microphone on a stage in front of a crowd. The contestant has two minutes to rattle off as many on-topic puns as he or she can before the clock beeps.

When the group is done, the Human Clap-O-Meter — this time it was a young woman named Laura — gauges the audience reaction to each contestant.

My group’s category was stores, appliances and devices. When it was my turn, I referred to an earlier competitor, who made a joke about a friend named LG. I said that at 70, I was old enough to know LG’s father, EKG.

It got a big laugh.

I went on to say that my wife likes my coffee so much that she doesn’t have grounds for complaint. Because she wants me to clean up after dinner, “Dishes my life.” And if I do laundry, it’s a “clothes call” and a “vicious cycle.”

On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), I got a 9.5 and made the semifinals.

During the 15-minute break before the next round, I was congratulated by several audience members. I was even lauded by my competitors, including Hot Cross Puns, a nine-time Punderdome champ who in her first try was the PunSlingers winner in the 2023 O. Henry competition.

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