Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! Puns

Back in the before times, when sit-down restaurants existed, I used to order boneless cheese sticks and would just throw the word "boneless" in front of any appetizer with 100% corniness. The purpose of this isn't to make a good joke. It's not a good joke. The purpose is to make my dining companions catch some cringe splash damage and want to crawl into a hole and die out of embarrassment for my being horribly corny.

But there is a real, deeper purpose that I've discovered entirely by accident. People, especially young people, are so self-conscious and worried about saying or doing something embarrassing that it taints a lot of social gatherings. They go to a restaurant and are afraid to speak up even when their order is blatantly wrong. They'll tip well even when the food took an hour to arrive and the server has disappeared into the corn stalks behind a baseball field. It takes 2 hours of hanging out together before some friends finally stop nitpicking themselves, uncomfortable in their own bodies and brains, feeling perpetually judged, and begin to relax. These are the kinds of people who go to sleep every night replaying cringey moments from high school. Their last thought of the day is when the Burger King girl said, "Enjoy your meal!" and they said, "Thanks, you too."

It takes 2 hours and/or a lot of booze before they're comfortable enough to take conversational risks and truly reveal themselves. But if I come right out of the gate with a really dumb joke, then we can cut to the chase. There's less danger because someone in the group already shot themselves in the foot, right off the bat. They pulled a pin on the cringe grenade and then jumped on it.

You cringe at my dumb joke and then we're over the hump. Someone has already done something pretty stupid, so go ahead and order the hubcap of nachos and a massive chocolate shake because nobody is going to judge you poorly while they're all judging me.

In terms of price negotiations (haggling), there is a psychological concept called "anchoring". You throw out the first number and all subsequent numbers are compared to that number. This is the same idea. We've already set the humor standard pretty low at "boneless cheese sticks", so you can say the dumbest shit you want and, as long as it's not worse than my cheesy joke, it won't matter.

This is why, when you were a teenager and your dad took you and some friends out, your dad made corny jokes. He knew they were corny jokes. You and your friends un

My dad is really proud of this one. It's the only joke he's ever told that's been funny enough to make somebody laugh so hard that they spit out of their nose. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this joke, so let me give you some context first:

He's been in a motorcycle accident (hit and run by an illegal immigrant), and had to have most of his vertebrae fused. They use titanium rods to hold your back from bending, so as you can imagine its kind of a major operation. His doctor prescribed a year (or longer if needed) of massage therapy, which he was thankful for. Twice a week he went in to a small clinic for a few hours at a time, and usually had the same masseuse. Let's call her Marge.

After four months of therapy they of course got to know each other very well. He was always faithful to my mother, but he was good friends with Marge. Their conversations range all the way from baseball to differentials, and everything stays platonic.

Here's where the story begins:

During a massage, they are having an energetic conversation, the time comes where he turns onto his back so that she can get to his knee ligaments (chainsawed his kneecap a few years prior, doc said may as well get there too). She goes at it like normal, and the conversation continues. Now here comes the part that made my dad wait to tell me this until recently: The "stimulation" in his knee for some reason, on that day out of all others, triggered a reflexive erection. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

The conversation goes quiet. Marge notices, but doesn't say a word. She remains professional. She continues working. My dad is more embarrassed than he's ever been. Several minutes of silence pass, and my dad cant take it anymore.

"Marge," he says, "I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room."

He raises his head to look down the table at her. He glances at it, then back to her. With a slight shake of his head he says:

"Wait nevermind, it's only his trunk"