You might recognize Hasan Minhaj as one of the newest Daily Show correspondents, or from his hilarious YouTube series, “The Truth,” or maybe even just his voice from his storytelling on The Moth podcast. He’s a multi-media kind of guy! And this month, you can see the 30-year-old comedian perform his one-man show, Homecoming King, at New York’s Cherry Lane Theatre. Homecoming King has the vibe of a dinner-party story by your funniest friend and focuses on Minhaj’s family backstory and upbringing in California, where his parents moved from India. There’s also a recurring (cringe-y) anecdote about Minhaj’s disastrous prom night, excerpted below.

Our A.P. calc class was a very tight-knit group of over-achievers. And our calc teacher, Mr. Davies, didn’t just want us to dominate the books, he wanted us to get out there and live well-rounded lives. One day he gets up in front of the entire class and goes, “Alright, you’re all killing it academically, but I want you to know there’s more to life than just getting into U.C. Berkeley.” One kid immediately chimes in, “I know, like getting into Stanford,” and Mr. Davies was like, “NO, that’s not what I mean. I want you guys to live a life worth talking about. Which is why I’m making it mandatory for everyone in this class to go to prom.” The same kid raises his hand, “Do we get extra credit?,” and Mr. Davies snapped, “NO! You get life credit!”

Now I’m in the back of the class laughing hysterically, because there’s no way he’s getting this group of social misfits to prom. This is calc B.C., we’re not about that social life. We have the Jehovah’s Witness girl. She’s not going to prom. We have the Korean exchange students. You have to ask another person, “Will you go to prom with me?,” in English! Remember Cup O’ Noodles? They used to sell Cup O’ Noodles at lunch. Kids would eat the noodles and then leave their cups of broth on the benches. There was a kid in my class, Mi Lan, who would check to see if the coast was clear, go up to the benches, and drink people’s lukewarm broth. Like, glug glug glug, “Mmmm French onion!” Disgusting. There’s no way broth breath is getting a date to prom. Come on, Mr. Davies, do the math.

But Davies was on a mission. He walks over to the board, pulls it down, and it’s a bracket with everyone’s name on it leading up to the big dance—it was basically March Madness for nerds. Now this was a great hypothetical, but it was never actually gonna happen. But as the weeks went by all of a sudden kids started getting dates. Jehovah’s Witness girl’s parents all of a sudden became cool and said yes, Korean exchange students asked each other, and Mi Lan popped a Tic Tac and found a young Mother Teresa to take him to prom. Three days before the dance Mr. Davies walks up to the board, pulls it down, and the last two names are “Hasan Minhaj” and “Bethany Reed.” The entire class howled, “OOOOOOO!!! THEY’RE GOING TO PROMMMMM!!!,” and I’m looking down at my desk thinking, “Why is this happening???” I look over to Bethany and she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t put me on blast publicly. We file out of class, and as I’m walking to my locker, she turns to me and says, “Hey, Hasan, ever since my family moved from Nebraska you’ve been my best friend. Do you wanna go to prom with me?” And with a dorky smirk I whispered, “Yes, my white princess!”