On Growing Older Puns

I can’t count on anyone

"That's the fastest I've moved in years!"

I really want to have a daughter and name her Zelda.

I imagine, as she gets older she will spend all her time writing sick poetry and rhymes in her journal, growing her hair down to her back, not to spite me, but so she can donate it later, and expand her wit by studying improv comedy through highschool.

As she becomes famous, I hope she will invite me to one of her rap battles and put me in the front row. My heart will grow as she takes the stage, but fatherly intuition tells me something is wrong...Zelda is frozen at the microphone.

I see her up on the stage, eyes alight with fright, hair pulled tight into a bun. She and I lock eyes, a moment of silence passes and serenity slowly enters...THIS is the moment we have been waiting for all our lives.

Looking up calmly, I couldn't be more proud as I exclaim, "Rap puns, Zel. Rap puns, Zel! Let down your hair!"

Then, I saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow.

It was addressed, 'Dad'.

With the worst premonition, I opened the envelope and read the letter, with trembling hands:

"Dear, Dad.

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you.

I had to elope with my new girlfriend, because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you.

I've been finding real passion with Stacy.

She is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing's, tattoos, her tight motorcycle clothes and because she is so much older than I am.

But it's not only the passion, Dad.

She's pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods, and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter.

We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone.

We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people in the commune for all the cocaine and ecstasy we want.

In the meantime, we'll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so that Stacy can get better.

She sure deserves it!

Don't worry Dad, I'm 15, and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday, I'm sure we'll be back to visit so you can get to know your many grandchildren.

Love, your son, Joshua.

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true.

I'm over at Jason's house.

I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the school report that's on the kitchen table.

Call when it is safe for me to come home!"

I grew up in Vermont. Around my town were plenty of dairy farms, inviting the always wonderful manure aroma. An aroma that nearly forced my father to inhale deeply through his nose, saying, "Ah, fresh Vermont air!"

That's an excellent Dad one liner, as are most dad jokes, but he had another great one that I'm getting to.

You see, the hay bails we saw growing up in Vermont were mostly the cube variety. Hay bailing technology at the time created cubes of hay, so that's what dotted the fields they'd graze in.

As we grew older, we starting noticing the now more common round bails of hay. Dad was not pleased.

I asked him what the problem was or, at least, what his problem was with the round bails. The best jokes are set up when you ask for them.

So, he tells me. New farming technology allowed the round bails to be created more efficiently. They used less fuel in the bailers, took less passes on the field to gather the hay. They used less twine, and even though they didn't fill a truck as well as square bails, there was still a net monetary gain from the efficiency gained elsewhere.

However, studies were done on the bails. The cows approached them differently due to the different alignment of surface area. The way the rain hit the bails and rolled off as opposed to soaking in leached nutrients out of the hay. Some cows even mistook the shape of bail for another animal, and approached them so nervously that their heart rates were known to raise significantly; such a rate that a tinge of acidity could be tasted by those in the know in their milk.

What all of this amounted to... is that with the new round bails of hay, the cows just weren't getting a good square meal.

There was a little boy who absolutely loved tractors, so for his 3rd birthday, his father bought him a little toy one. The boy thought this was the best toy he had ever gotten, and ignored all his other gifts to focus on the tractor, pushing it around the lounge whenever he got the chance, making tractor noises etc.

As the boy grows a little bit older, he comes to his 10th birthday, when his dad says "Alright son, you're a little older now, so here you go" before giving him a push-along ride-on tractor for their backyard. The boy thinks this is even better than his now quite old toy tractor, and is taking days off school and everything just to ride around the house and neighbourhood on his push-along tractor.

He gets a little older again, and lo and behold, it's now his 18th birthday. His dad comes up to him during the party and says "Ok son, you're a man now, so here you go" before unveiling a fully functional tractor for his son. "Wow, thanks Dad, this is amazing!" says the son, before taking it for a quick test drive. The tractor becomes his main transport, as he goes to the grocery store and just generally cruises in his brand new tractor.

He decides to take the tractor on it's first proper outing, and goes into the middle of nowhere, with no cell service or house to be seen for miles, and the tractor of course breaks down. It takes him a while to get in touch with AAA and his Dad to come and help him out, so he decides after that experience that maybe it would be a better idea to invest in a car than a tractor after all.

Lo and behold, a few years later, the now adult son is driving down the same road in his new car, although there's now a house there that is engulfed in flames! A lady comes out, screaming "Help! Help! Call 911, my baby is trapped inside!" The man simply stops and says "It's ok, mam, I've got this." He takes in a massive gulp of air, and the entire fire just disappears! The lady says "Wow, that's amazing! How did you do that?!" before the man responds with "Well, you see mam, I'm an ex tractor fan."