My favourite 'dad joke' is purposefully misunderstanding the kids and watching their disbelief as they try and reword things so even an idiot can understand. We have a family app so they need permission to download some apps onto their devices (because we are "controlling" 🙂).

So every now and then this will happen:

Child : Can I get an app?

Me : sure, if you're tired just go and lie down.

Child: no, an APP

Me: yes, lie DOWN

Child: No, I need an... I want a...I just want...an app.

Me: or an early night?

Child: weary sigh

Me: you do look tired

• thinking I'm the best joker in history*

That was a short version. If it didn't make sense, read it aloud.

The kids will put me in a home at the first opportunity.

total legend

That's what I herd, anyway.

To wit: to woo.

I wanted my report card to spell out F art

I've used it before and it works. It's the perfect icebreaker.

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

It was a whisk I had to take

In other words, there is joint support for joint support for joint support...

I told her there wasn’t any, in these times bakers can’t be choosers.

Ah, makes cents!

I prefer when they're pun-intentional

Pointless

It was a red hearring, so I blue myself for nothing.

But it DOES seal quacks in ducks

That's the only time his thoughts are in tents.

is so they can tell when it's really in trouble.

God gave you toes as a device for finding furniture in the dark

.... either urinate or you're out of it"

A lab brat.

To keep cancer from getting the breast of us.

They make the person look better

She's a strange woman, but that's how she rolls.

Most people think the main purpose of a propeller is to help keep the plane up in the air but that is not the case

It is really meant to be used to cool off the pilot

Because if the propeller stops spinning then the pilot begins to sweat

all.

Ent-trophy.

...or are they tanks for nothing?

I guess it had faulty automotives

Teacher "I used to be addicted to soap... Don't worry I'm all clean now" Then he just started cracking up and left.

Turns out he was mis-taken.

A Fraudian Slip.

My father had been in a phase where all he'd drink was wine from the Rhine region of Germany.

When the waiter at the Chinese restaurant asked what we wanted for drinks, my father, knowing that not all restaurants carry it, asked "Do you have Rhine?"

Waiter: Yes, of course

Dad: Ok, great, I'll have that!

Waiter (looking confused): Ahh, ok, you want red rine, or white rine?

Dad: uhh.. how about merlot?

In other words, there is joint support for joint support for joint support.