Check the shirt

(1 enters wearing a “Department of Redundancy Department” tee-shirt)
“Yo. Check the shirt.”
“Wha?”
“Check the shirt.”
(2 looks down at his own shirt and brushed off a few crumbs)
“No, my shirt. Check it.”
“Oh. ‘Department of Redundancy Department.’ Oh.”
“It’s funny, right?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so.”
“What do you mean you guess so?”
“It’s funny, OK?”
“You’re not laughing.”
“I’m just—not out loud, I’m just not in a laugh-out-loud kind of mood.”
“I don’t think you get it.”
“What do you mean? I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. The Department for Redundancy Department is an appropriately redundant name.”
“It’s irony! Maybe that’s too sophisticated a thought for you to handle, but—”
“Actually, it’s not ironic. It’s completely appropriate which in fact makes that shirt the exact opposite of ironic.”
“That where you’re wrong. The very department set up to combat redundancy is falling prey to its own enemy! It’s not that complicated a concept or shirt.”
“Well I can’t say I know exactly what the Department of Redundancy does, but the Department of Motor Vehicles does not exist to identify and wipe out motor vehicles wherever they appear.”
“Yes. But! But! The Department of Motor Vehicles exists to what? To what? To service motor vehicles. Likewise, the Department of Redundancy exists to service redundancy.”
“Bryan—”
“Wait! Wait! Let me finish. Now, how does one service redundancy?”—“No answer. Typical. Well let me tell you that one services redundancy by eliminating it from conversation, thereby streamlining the language and making things clearer and easier for everyone, yeah? But. This department is so inept that it cannot even correct the redundancy in its very name! And this is the department that’s meant to rid the world of redundancy? It’s ironic, it’s a biting satire of ineffectual government bureaucracy, it’s fucking brilliant and I’m not gonna sit here and listen to you trash this shirt because you don’t understand it. OK?”
—
—
—
“You’re right, the shirt is hilarious.”
“Yeah. I could get you one if you wanted.”
“No thank you.”