Midway through relaxing and enjoying the rehearsal dinner, those of us on Otis that had been able to make it down for the weekend (Marc, Gandy and Duffy) realized we were supposed to do some kind of improv game during the toasts portion of the evening.

Shelby: Didn't Joe tell you? He was supposed to tell you weeks ago.
Arnie: No...
Marc: He means yes. Right?
Arnie: Oh. Yes. I'm sure he e-mailed us. In fact, yes, he e-mailed us. I must have forgot. It's not Joe's fault.

Despite being improvisers, we're not particularly fond of coming up with something at the last minute. Especially at a special occasion.

Instead of doing a short improv game (which is not really the kind of improv we do), we got everyone there to sing, 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.' It's an effective audience warm-up exercise that Joe does when he hosts at iO. Everyone in the room sings the song, standing up (or sitting down) on every word that starts with a B. And there's crazy fast standing and sitting at the end with "bring [stand] back [sit], bring [stand] back [sit], oh bring [stand] back [sit] my bonnie [stand] to me to me." Like that.

It's goofy campfire-style fun, and although I doubt it particularly impressed anyone there ("Boy, I've got to go check out that Chicago improv!"), it was a nice little game involving something we think of when we think of Joe.

As soon as we got back to our seats it occurred to me that we could have ended by saying something like, "We're glad Joe has finally found his bonnie." Then again, I'm not 100% sure "bonnie" actually means "love" or "girl." I could have accidentally said, "We're glad Joe has finally found him mom."