Remembering Stories from the Past

I got an email today that talked about spam bots and how certain words indicated to him the absence of said bot. (In this case, it was the word epicurean) It made me laugh, and I remarked that it must be like a secret handshake to use words that bots wouldn't know.

That, of course, reminded me of the truly ingenious plan I developed for homeland security. Back in the day when there was almost constant talk of sleeper cells and the like hiding out in America, I had a sure-fire plan to weed them out of our neighborhoods. (And at the time, to hear Fox News tell it, every one of us had a terrorist living next door.)

The problem with finding those who would do us harm, was that they were clearing normal American society too well to be discovered. So I thought that the feds should conduct a simple door-to-door search, asking only one question. To prove that you're a true American, you would be required to complete this phrase:
"Conjunction Junction....." Anyone who did not know the next line would be immediately put on the next plane to Guantanamo.

My idea thoroughly amused me. And pretty much only me. So I found that it had a secondary purpose....sussing out people with no sense of humor. This just made me tell the story even more, and I found myself in a variety of social settings repeating those lines. Most of the time, I saw shock (horror?) on the faces of those standing in front of me. Often, they would launch into their own political diatribes. Once in a while, the other person laughed. And then I knew I could and should continue the conversation.

Now that I'm thinking about it, we must have spam bots in real life, also. The drones who chip away through their day, only picking up fractured information cues to tell them where to shift. They wouldn't necessarily use 'epicurean' and they don't get the joke. But there are some people out there who understand subtext and know it's okay to laugh.

What's your function?