The graduation announcements, which I ordered with great enthusiasm and anticipation, arrived carefully boxed and protected in plastic. I gingerly removed the various wrappings, sat down at my table with my best black pen and the carefully-crafted list of 25 deeply-cherished friends and family members, then mailed out each invitation with a wish that the recipient would share my joy as completely and heart-soaringly as I was sharing the news of my successful attainment of a B.A. in Liberal Studies.

Graduation was over a week ago and last night I found myself wondering where each of the 25 announcements is now. Surely my beloved mother has hers either still posted to the front of her refrigerator (where I’d asked her to hang it, in the spirit of “look what my kid did”), or carefully boxed with her other treasures. And I spoke with my doctor last week — she told me that she immediately put hers on display on a shelf in her office, where it remains.

But, people’s time and lives being cluttered enough with their own priorities, I’m certain that the vast majority of my announcements ended up either being recycled along with the empty Pale Ale bottles and Barilla pasta boxes, or shoved in a garbage can — noodles and fish scraps sliding down the Sonoma State University Official Seal.

That’s the way of life: we move on. Jerry Seinfeld, demonstrating his usual keen cultural understanding, wrote into one of his episodes a bit in which a girl he’s seeing (but not that crazy about) gets annoyed with him because she spots in his trash can the card she had sent him, leading him to question just how many days one is obligated to keep greeting cards before being allowed to dispose of them.

He’s brilliant. Because I have the feeling that the more affection people feel for me, the longer they are inclined to hold on to that announcement. Have you ever received a card from someone, opened it, and thrown it directly into the trash? It’s the Greeting Card Lifespan Measure of Meaningful Relationship.

If you’re reading this, and you received one of my announcements, my hope is that the announcement made you smile, that you kept it around for at least a week so you could smile a few more times, and then either tucked it away (if you have space/inclination), or responsibly recycled it so that it could have new life.

Because if recycled, then, much like the graduates themselves, the announcements become reborn as blank sheets of paper upon which new excitements, new invitations, and new worlds of opportunity can be printed and invented. I can’t think of a more perfect commencement — for people or paper.

Fairly quivering with excitement and anticipation, I drove up to Sonoma State University this morning to pick up the cap and gown which I’d ordered last month. When I arrived at the bookstore, however, there were glitches: first, the curmudgeonly 60-ish clerk at the customer service counter couldn’t find my order at all; then, when he did find it, I was amazed to discover it was encased in a plastic wrapper and no bigger than a shirt package. I had expected the gown to be elegantly suspended from a hanger, protected by a garment bag. (Later, after I got home, I found out that the “gown” was so haphazardly packaged because it’s a polyester/recycled-soda-bottle blend, and you could probably wad the whole thing up and stuff it in a Band-Aid can and it would emerge unwrinkled.)

When he handed me my order, I asked, “Is everything here? Gown, cap, and tassels?” He said he hadn’t checked, and started half-heartedly poking through the packages. Taking inventory, I asked politely, “What about my cords? They had told me I would get cords based on my academic status, and I think I’m graduating with honors.” I was amazed he hadn’t mentioned them as part of my regalia packet — he would have let me leave the store without them.

And, in a scene out of the “Twilight Zone,” he said dismissively, “Well, you’d need to show me ID.” I had just shown him my driver’s license when I’d given him my credit card, but I said patiently, “I have my driver’s license…or did you want my Social Security number?” He said, as if this closed the matter, “I was thinking more along the lines of a valid student ID card.” He started to turn away, done with me. I was genuinely baffled — why wasn’t he going to give me my cords?

Neal said, not kindly, “Excuse me. Excuse me. She needs her cords.” Crankypants then pointed us to the other counter and said we’d have to go over there. Shaking my head in amazement at the strangeness of that encounter, I picked up my bags and moved them to the other check-out station, this one staffed by a young, alert, engaged bespectacled guy in his 20s. When I told him I needed my cords, please, he declined my offer of an ID and asked my name and major, which I provided.

He pulled out a big book, and then his eyes got really wide as he noted the three “section” signs [§§§] adjacent to my name. “Ooooh!” he enthused, “Look at you — summa cum laude ! Gold on gold!” Genuinely impressed (either that, or a gifted drama student), he produced two golden cords and handed them to me with reverence and a giant smile. I could have hugged him but that would have caused talk, so I just beamed “I love you and we shall marry someday” vibes at him as I gathered my things and left.

Two men, two moments, two very different memories. I’m so glad the Universe saved the best for last.

I love to make people laugh. Heck, I love making people smile. But long ago I learned that taking a stab at humor is like bullfighting — it takes courage to participate, and both have tremendous potential for pain and injury. Because no matter how innocuous the joke, humor has the power to offend. In fact, savvy albeit cruel word-warriors know this, and intentionally use its two-edged sword to wound, excusing hurtful barbs as “teasing.”

But even when you mean no harm, and even if you avoid all of the obvious (and unfunny, mean-spirited) pitfalls of race, religion, obesity, etc., there is something in almost every joke which has the power to offend someone. And it’s tricky because, in comedy, timing is everything. The quick-witted casual comedian faces this dilemma: You’re in a group of people, you see the opportunity for a joke, you have less than a split second to weigh its appropriateness and laugh-potential, and you go for it. Then, one of three things happens:

1. It falls flat and there is a mild half-laugh, half embarrassed silence;
2. It totally kills and there is a roar of laughter; or
3. Someone is going to be offended.

And even if #1 or #2 happens, #3 is still a possibility as to one or more of the assembled. (If #1 happens because your material was so offensive, you’d better rethink your entire relationship with amateur comedy.) However, if you take too long pre-delivery in deciding whether your joke is appropriate to the situation, the people, and the moment, you’re sunk, anyway, because comedy has to be quick.

So, there it is: trying to make people laugh is a huge risk and I’ve endured my share of thuds. Maybe I should give it up, and simply err on the side of caution. Still, the Big Laugh is seductive. There was that one Christmas — I was at a huge semi-formal dinner party, with my boyfriend, at the home of his friend’s mother. In other words, the stakes were enormous: there was the new guy to impress, plus I was seated at a table full of strangers, at an event hosted by a very conservative woman. But when I realized the names of the two men between whom I was sitting, and that their names were identical, I couldn’t help myself: At a quiet moment during the dinner, I said brightly, “You know, I really shouldn’t be having this food.” I waited just a beat to collect the puzzled looks, then BAM, hit them with the punch: “My mother always told me not to eat between Neals.” A one-second silence — then everyone at the table HOWLED with laughter. They were mine. They loved me. And I loved them. And for the rest of the dinner party, the new boyfriend gave me a looks that melted two inches off the centerpiece tapers. It was perfect joy.

Did I say seductive? I meant addictive. It’s moments like that which keep me coming back for more, weighing the appropriateness, taking the risk. So, to my friends and family reading this, please know that I have to go for the joke. If I fail, well, my heart was in the right place, even if my sense of timing wasn’t. And if I bomb, I’ll just do what professional and amateur comedians have been doing for decades when their best efforts fail: laugh it off. Because there’s always another show. Thank you, ladies and germs, I’ll be here all week.