Scavenged Puns

he called it recycling.

The secret reward is called Waist of Time.

Well played, Blizzard, well played.

They only allow carrion bags.

One of them's a bottom dwelling, scum sucking scavenger...

The other one's just a fish.

When I was about 5 years old, my dad told the greatest dad joke. He’d be driving the family through our neighborhood and would say “Look! A man wearing a dress!” My siblings and I would look around and laugh with my dad. We loved when he would say this (it was like an absurd scavenger hunt) but my mother absolutely hated it. “Where? What are you talking about Tom?!” She actually got angry since she couldn’t see the man wearing a dress either. Since he would do this on a semi-regular basis to make us laugh, it became a problem with my mom and she ended up getting so angry as to forbid him saying it ever again.

I never really understood what was going on since I was so young, but I really missed the man wearing a dress joke. At one point, I thought the joke referenced a nearby business with a kilted man for a mascot. A few years ago, I asked my dad what the joke was.

“Oh! It wasn’t the sign,” he told me. “We had a family in the neighborhood with the last name ‘Manwaring’. When we would drive by their house, I’d point at their mailbox and say ‘Look, a Manwaring address!’”

I was too young to read at the time so it took 20 years to be in on his brilliant pun.

Three college students (Jim, Tom, and Steve) decided to stay overnight in an abandoned house that was supposedly haunted, all to prove that there was nothing supernatural there. They decided to sleep in separate rooms to increase chances of scary things happening. Each room was connected to one long hallway which lead to some stairs. After a while, the three called it a night and went to their separate rooms.

At midnight, Jim woke up to the sound of a scream coming from one of the rooms. He ran out into the hall where he met Steve, who also had just woken up. They walked into Tom’s room, and he was nowhere to be found. “Surely this must be a prank” thought Jim, and he and Steve decided to go back to bed. He slept for almost an hour when Jim woke up to another scream coming from a different room. He ran into the hall, and this time Steve did not join him. He walked into Steve’s room, and noticed that Steve had completely vanished. Still in the mindset that this was a prank by his two friends two, Jim went back to bed.

An hour later, Jim woke up to the sound of thumping in the hallway. He went out of his room and saw a giant coffin with chainsaws attached to where arms would be. The coffin was also blocking the exit, meaning that the only way to go was the stairs! Jim immediately ran up them as fast as he could. He stopped to catch his breath, then heard the thumping of something coming up the stairs, so he started running again! He ran into another set of stairs going up, so he ran up them as fast as he could. He stopped to catch his breath, when once again, he heard the thumping of something coming up the stairs, so he started to run. Eventually, he reached a dead end in a bathroom. He turned around to see the coffin at the doorway. Frantically, Jim scavenged the cabinets for anything he could use to fight it. All he could find was some cough drops. Using all the strength he had, he threw the cough drops at the coffin. Upon impact, the coffin suddenly started to dissolve! Before long nothing remained of it. Jim was astonished! The cough drops had stopped his coffin.

For the past three years I've held scavenger hunts to celebrate my birthday. This year I've decided on the theme, "Dads' Night Out." Examples of items on last year's (non-dad-themed) list: "Play red light/green light with at least three strangers," "Switch pants with a stranger," and "Haiku written by a bartender." All items require physical, photographic or video evidence. What are your ideas for dad-themed items or jokes I can fit in here and there? Any other ideas on how I can make this year the best year yet would be appreciated.

Dad: The police stopped by the house today.

Me: Why?

Dad: Last weekend I was visiting my friend in the backwoods. As I was driving, a pig jumped out in front of me. I swerved to avoid it but ended up hitting it. I got out of my car and noticed it was not going to live. The pig had to be over 100 pounds, and there wasn't any way to move it. I look around and couldn't see anyone. I decided to leave the pig in the road figuring people would drive around it and scavengers would eventually take care of it. But today the police stopped by to question me about it.

Me: No one was around, right? How did they know you hit it?

Dad: The pig squealed. Dad laughs as I fell right into it.