When things get so boooooorrrrrrrring in the Senate that one Senator decides to have a vocabulary quiz, you know it’s about time to take a break.

It was late in the day yesterday. The Senate was muddling through some amendments and an amendment to an amendment on an education bill when it paused to sort something out. The sponsor of the bill, Matt Bartle of Lee’s Summit, apparently felt the need to inject some energy into things with a vocabulary quiz that also became a spelling lesson and a foreign language lesson.

We give you chances at Missourinet.com to listen to your lawmakers in serious, sometimes heated, often intense debate. Every now and then they loosen up.

AUDIO: Listen for a knock-knock joke without the knock-knock, courtesy of the leader of the entire senate.

Good grief.

Oh, by the way—the senate recessed shortly after all of this hilarity. Ennui can be so wearing at times.