A limerick is five lines. Lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme with each other and are longer: three beats apiece. Lines 3 and 4 rhyme with each other and are shorter: two beats. The rhythm goes da-DUM-da-da-DUM-da-da-DUM, like a horse that's trotting home for supper. Say it out loud. If you trip, fix it. The joke goes in the last line, and the last line should land like a screen door.

That's it. That's the whole secret. The rest is practice and a rhyming dictionary, which Joan gave me for Christmas and has regretted ever since.

There once was a doc in our town
Whose prescriptions I'd turn upside down.
     Was it "twice every day"
     Or "a pie on a tray"?
I'd just phone him. He'd sigh. He'd come down.

A fellow came in with a cold
And asked for the strongest I sold.
     I said, "Rest, soup and tea."
     He said, "That's all for free!"
I said, "Yes, and it works, so I'm told."

A lady was sure that the brand
Was the best in the whole of the land.
     I said, "Ma'am, it's the same,
     Only different in name."
She said, "Rick, you just don't understand."

I counted out pills by the five
For as long as I've been half alive.
     Now retired, it's a curse:
     I count peas. What is worse,
I count cows when we go for a drive.

Our thermostat's been in a war
Since we married in 'sixty-four.
     Joan turns up a touch;
     I turn down just as much,
And the furnace has stopped keeping score.

Our cat is a tabby named Sue
Who sleeps on my keyboard, it's true.
     When I shoo her, she'll yawn,
     And she's off, and she's gone,
And I've got forty pages of Q.

Each August our garden goes mad
With zucchini, the most I have had.
     I leave bags by the door
     Of the church and the store,
And the neighbors lock up. Too bad!

My grandson, who's handy with keys,
Said, "Gramps, put your rhymes up. Oh, please!"
     So I did, and now folks
     In Peru read my jokes,
And a man wrote from Perth, overseas.

Our modem, each night, makes a screech
Like a gull that's been left on a beach,
     Then it hisses and dongs,
     Sings a few other songs,
And we're on! (It's a two-minute speech.)

When the calendar rolls to next year,
Our computer will choke, so I hear.
     It will think that it's then
     Nineteen hundred again,
And will wonder how it got in here.

I've been told to check e-mail each day,
So I do, and I'm sorry to say
     That the only one yet
     Has been Joan, who's upset
That I'm checking my e-mail all day.

Every month I put up the best one somebody sends me. This month's is from Dot in Duluth, who says it's a true story and her husband says it isn't.

My husband insists he won't snore;
He says it's the wind at the door.
     So I taped him one night,
     Played it back, and his fright
Was so great that he sleeps now next door.

Send yours to [email protected]. Five lines, clean, and it has to scan. I will tell you, kindly, if it doesn't.