Every wisenheimer, amateur comedian remembers and cherishes favorite one-liners since childhood. But more than the joke quality, its extreme, conspicuous reactions are most dearly recalled. A loss of control from an overwhelmed recipient of a perfectly-timed one-liner is to a jokester what unanimous 10 scores are to an Olympic gymnast. It’s gold.

The most esteemed honor for an arrested-development, adult class-clown is liquid, before being successful swallowed, violently projected outward from a facial orifice. Most often it’s the mouth or nose, with eyes and ears a startling rarity.

One hot day after we had our three-second sips and were seated, Mrs. Trexel tipped her ever-present bottle of pop, (pronounced “soda” in Pennsylvania). As she shamelessly gulped her favorite “Bubble-Up,” I loudly counted out, “One, two…THREE!” That highly-carbonated, acidic nostril irritant explosively spewed, bubbled and foamed from her mouth and nose. With the feared enforcer still laughing and the paddle not even a consideration, all the kids joined in the extended laughter.

All I could see throughout that room were scorecards displaying 10s. A class-clown monster was created that day, my friends.

The second time I successfully procured liquid from an unprepared nose came 25 years to the day later. Actually I’m just guessing on the “to the day” part, but I have no proof otherwise. I was 35 and trying, but barely succeeding, to survive a broken heart.

As his young family and I ate, Mick told the story of his mother who had immigrated to America from Russia in the early 1950s, leaving her disinterested husband behind. After the obligatory two-year wait before becoming eligible for widow benefits, his mother had his father declared legally dead, Mick explained.

Self-obsessed and unmoved by his tragic tale, I said, “Yeah, Kathy pulled that same legally-dead thing on me, but she obviously knows exactly where I am.”

And then it happened: a lovely sight I shall never forget. Milk launched — not a drip or dribble, but a full launch — from 13-year-old Andy’s nose, splattering well beyond his plate. Instantly my sadness turned to gladness and my frown turned upside down. Don’t tell me laughter isn’t the best medicine, and if I have a choice between a hearty belly laugh or a gushing nose, I’m going up-top every time.

Unlike Wanda, Mom was far from a throw-the-head-back, uninhibited laugher. I could easily make her chuckle mildly, but none of us were ready for the public spectacle we witnessed at the Holiday Inn when they visited in their elderly years. When the waitress served our individual entrees, she repeated each as she set down the plates.

“Spaghetti?” “Meat loaf?” and when she came to Dad, “Shrimp.” I feigned outrage and barked, “Hey, enough with the name-calling. He might be short, but he’s a good person.” Well, you’d have thought Mom had just been goosed, as coffee gurgled from her mouth, leaving her dinner a soggy mess. It was the hardest we’d ever seen our mother laugh, and Pop cherished the memory of her embarrassment forever.

Those are the highlights of a career that never rose above amateur status. Should I ever coax a beverage from an opening in your head, you too may be mentioned in a future, “Best one-liners, part two” column. And if the burst originates further south (escaped air can be just as valuable as soda pop to a jokester), an entire chapter might be devoted to you.