There once was a group of old friends who would get together on a regular basis for social interaction, telling stories and making jokes. As these folks aged, t

There once was a group of old friends who would get together on a regular basis for social interaction, telling stories and making jokes. As these folks aged, they ended up telling pretty much the same old stories and jokes again and again until they reached the point where they just assigned a number to each. Decades later, they would gather and sit in silence for long periods until one or the other of them would just say something like "47" and all the other would laugh.