Improbable Erdős numbers

I was just telling one of the first-year students about my pipe dream of a paper. I would need to find a collaborator with Erdős number 1 and a good sense of humor. We would submit the paper to the Annals of Improbable Research. The paper would be titled, “John Armstrong has Erdős number 2″, and the paper itself would be the proof. Other than the difficulty of citing a paper in its own bibliography, I have no doubt that this would be a great idea.

The student, needless to say, was dumbfoundedawestruck. I pointed out to him, “There’s a thin line between genius and madness, and I walk all over that line.”