Smile A Little Smile For Me Puns

I saved this from r/dadjokes back in 2016, hopefully no one else has posted it recently! 🤣

A Christmas Poem
by Dad (1952–2009)

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the shack,
Not a creature was stirring, we was all in the sack;
Our mugs were placed on the mantle with cheer,
In hope that Saint Nick would bring us a beer;
And me I was tucked up all snug in my bed,
But strains of sweet music still danced through my head;
So I sprang from my bed with a crash and a clatter,
And off down the hall with bare feet did I patter;
There on the chair sat my musical pipe,
So I sat down to play without fanfare or hype;
Come Mozart, come Hayden, Stravinski and Strauss,
And write me some music to bring down the house;
When down from the chimney appeared with a crash,
A strange little man in the smoke and the ash;
He wiggled and jumped and got up like a shot,
Came over and said, "Man those cinders are hot!";
His stomach it shook like a bowl full of jelly,
For a moment I thought it was dear old aunt Nelly;
His nose like a cherry, his ears like two jugs,
I was worried that this guy just might be on drugs;
His language was foul, his jokes they were crass,
So I opened the door and threw him out on his ass;
But then as I turned, boy was I ever surprised;
I saw what he'd bought me, or so I surmised;
For there in the corner right under the tree,
Was some brand new sheet music and a case of O.V.;
I turned to say thank-you but found he had gone,
He was not in the garden and not on the lawn;
And just when I thought that he couldn't get far,
I realized the old goat had stolen the car;
Off in the distance he said with a wheeze,
"I hated to do it but you left me the keys!";
I smiled and laughed for this much I could savour,
For I'd just sold the car to my idiot neighbour;
And once more he called as he drove out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and don't drive when you're tight!"

Didn't know where to post this; but since it's Father's Day, I wanted to tell you all about a little family tradition that started because Dad, is Dad.

18 years ago (Not about, trust me, I know this one to the date) I was over Dad's house and I needed a wrench, and coming from a long line of mechanics, I knew he's have one available as I didn't have my kit in my car, so I asked to borrow one.

Dad of course said yes, handed me the mechanic's tool box, and just out of habit, I opened it and immediately noticed that a Craftman's 7/16, ratchet-end wrench was missing.

Again, I come from a LONG line of mechanics; every tool has its place, be it in a drawer, box or outlined on a peg board, and I thought it was weird that Dad lost a wrench out of the spare / house tool kit.

"You're missing a 7/16." I pointed out, showing him the missing slot.

Now Dad, being Dad, just had to bust on me a bit, so looking me dead in the eyes and beaming a huge smile he responded: "It was there when I gave it to you."

Mind you, I hadn't left the kitchen. I hadn't so much as shifted my FEET. I knew he was lying, he knew he was lying, but it had been ingrained in me since childhood that losing a tool is a death sentence.

Now, I knew he was busting my balls and I let it go; but from that day forward, anytime we needed something, he'd make a comment like "Sure wish I had that 7/16th wrench that Coyote lost." or "You know what would fix it? That missing 7/16th wrench."

This went on for MONTHS. So one day, he made the usual "tease me for losing a tool" comment and I warned him. I looked him in the eyes and said:

"Say it ONE more time old man, and you're going to get that wrench every Birthday, Father's Day and Christmas for the rest of your natural life."

Few hours passed, I asked him to hand me a tool and he said: "I can't you lost it, remember?"

I laughed, and played it off -but it was on...and that was 18 years ago.

Today, being Father's day, he just received his 52nd craftsman's ratchet-end, 7/16th wrench.

Since that day, he's tried telling me that he knows that I didn't lose it, (I knew that already) that I don't need to buy it (Oh, I fucking DO.), and he's occasionally tried to say it was a different size or item to get a different present, but we both know that's not happening.

They're everywhere. Every coffee can, junk drawer, cabinet, tool box, peg board or spare nail in the house and garage contains a Craftsman's 7/16 ratchet end wrench. You know how they say you'r

One cold winter's morning he was walking along a country road, when he heard a cry for help from a nearby lake.

He turned to see a little girl struggling in the broken ice in the middle of the lake. She'd been skating and had fallen into the icy water. Without a moment's hesitation the tramp ran onto the ice and slipped and slided over to the little girl. He managed to pull her out without breaking the ice further and he carried her back to the road.

He took off his coat and wrapped the little girl in it and began looking for a car to flag down. A few moments later a huge chauffeur-driven limo pulled up, and who stepped out but the little girl's father - the mayor of the nearby town and a multi-millionaire.

"How can I ever thank you sir?" says the father after putting his daughterinto the warmth of the limo.

"Just name your price - I'm a wealthy man."

"Ahem, well ..." stammered the tramp "...eh I'm a little short of cash, perhaps you could help me out"

"Certainly" says the girl's father and he pulls out his wallet.

"Oh dear" says the father, "I don't carry much cash with me, I only have ten dollars - but come home with me and I'll get more from the safe"

"No! No!" says the tramp, "Why ten dollars is more money than I've seen in my whole life - that will be plenty".

"Well, if you insist" says the father - "now what will you do with your money?"

"Oh that's easy" says the tramp "I've not had a rest in 20 years. I think I'll buy myself a holiday"

"Well good luck" says the father, and he gets into the car and signals his chauffeur to drive home.

"Ten Dollars" thinks the tramp, "I'm rich! I'm rich!", and off he goes to the town, to buy himself a holiday.

He finds a travel agent, walks in - much to the disgust of the staff - and goes up to the desk.

"I'll have one holiday please!"

"Ahem, which holiday would sir like" asked the girl at the desk, forcing a smile.

"Oh, any holiday I don't mind" replied the tramp.

"Well how much money does sir have to spend on sir's holiday?"

"Oh lots - anything up to ten dollars"

"TEN DOLLARS!! You'll never get a holiday for ten dollars" says the girl incredulously.

"Oh dear" said the tramp, "and I was so looking forward to a holiday - I'll probably never get another chance - isn't there anything you can do?"

"Well I don't think so sir, but hold on and I'll check"

The girl goes into the back of the shop, and searches in the deepest, dustiest filing drawers she can find. There - to her amazement -

...and as he looks across the road he sees a man with a giant orange head. The man with the giant orange head looks over and smiles, crossing the road to speak to the other man.

"I'm so sorry, "says the first man, "I didn't mean to stare at you!" "It's absolutely fine," says the man with the giant orange head, "Happens all the time. I bet you're wondering how I got this giant orange head." "Well, yes!" replied the first man. "Well...my grandmother died recently. She had been unwell for a long time and basically raised me as my parents had died when I was very young. She raised me alone as my grandfather had died before I was born. We didn't have very much but we were happy. I loved her very much. After her funeral, it was time to clear the house as it was rented and I wanted to move on anyway. I was up in the attic going through her papers and I saw this dusty old lamp. I lifted it, gave it a little rub and there was a huge flash. When I opened my eyes there was a strange looking man. It felt like he looked into my soul. 'I am the genie of the lamp' he said, 'and I grant you three wishes' I didn't believe him at first but deep within me I knew it was true. He asked me what my first wish was and clichéd as it was, I said World Peace."

"Hahaha...how did that work out?" asked the first man.

"Well, " replied the man with the giant orange head, "have you heard of any wars or riots happening in the last few days?"

"Come to think of it, " said the first man, "You're right. The news has been pretty positive! Wow! That's amazing. So what did you choose for your second wish?"

"I gave it a few minutes thought this time " smiled the man with the giant orange head, "and remembering how poor we were, I wished for an unending supply of money."

"Did it work??" asked the first man.

"It did!" replied the man with the giant orange head, "here's £10,000 from my pocket. Enjoy it, I've got as much as I want."

"Wow, thank you so much!" said the first man, "that's incredibly generous of you, I don't know what to say! Oh wait! What did you ask for for your third wish?"

"I wished for a giant orange head."

Let’s be stinkers and go out the other end!!!

My stepdad told me this when I was little and every once and a while I think of it and it makes me smile. I thought it would do the same for you

When I got there, I took out my little brown bottle along with a teaspoon and laid them both onto the counter. The Pharmacist came over smiled and asked if he could help me. I said, “Yes! Could you please taste this for me?” Being I’m a Senior Citizen, I guess the Pharmacist just went along with me. He picked up the spoon and put a tiny bit of the liquid on his tongue and swilled it around. Then with a stomach-churning look on his face he spit it out on the floor and began coughing, gagging and turning green. When he finally was finished, I looked him right in the eye asked, “Now, does that taste sweet to you?” The Pharmacist, shaking his head back and forth with a venomous look in his eyes yelled, “HELL NO!!!” So I said, “Oh thank God! That’s such a relief! My Doctor told me to have a Pharmacist test my Urine for sugar!”

After many years of wandering, he finally arrived in a small village in the middle of nowhere. The people there believed in the same religion as he did, but they had no church; they had to go to the nearest one which was in a small town 25 km's from there. The priest took the initiative, asked the Church for support, and with the help of the local men they built their own temple. From there on, he was celebrating the Sunday masses, joining together men and women in Holy Matrimony, and saying prayers at the funerals.

Many years passed by like that.

At the end of an ordinary mass, in early spring, on a chilly Sunday morning he was just guiding the people out of the church, was about to close the gates when an unknown man stepped into the churchyard.

With his dirty and torn clothes, he stood before the priest and said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was a good man, and even though he thought the request was a bit strange, he went back to the rectory, took out a lemon, cut it in half, took it back to the man and gave it to him, who looked back to the priest with gratitude. However, the priest was curious. He asked:

• Son, why do you need this half of a lemon? - with a fright on his face, and before the priest could have said a thing, he rushed out of the churchyard gate and took off.

A week later, around the same time, when the priest was leaving the church, he found himself in front of the same man in the churchyard. The man said:

• Priest, please be good and give me half a lemon! - the priest was surprised by the appearance of the man and his strange request. Of course he was good, went back to the rectory, and brought the half lemon. Placed it in the stranger’s hand and immediately he asked:

• Here it is, my dear son, but please tell me why do you need this half a lemon? - the man was obviously frightened and immediately ran away but the priest was not sluggish either and ran after him. He wasn’t in a very good condition, he has never run so much and so fast before so he was out of breath by the end of the village, almost fainted. He thought the strange man might appear again next week, and it would be nice if he could keep up with him, so he spent his week working on his cardio. It turned out to be a good idea, because as he thought, the stranger entered the churchyard on Sunday. The priest didn’t even wait for the request, he was good, and brought the half lemon. He received these words from the man:

• Thank you

I have a scrawny, little, younger sister and we always have a seafood buffet for Christmas dinner.

Sister: "Hey, dad can you pass me the shrimp and I want some mussels too please?"

Dad: "Here's the shrimp, for mussels you're gonna have to go to a gym and do some exercising" [continues eating his food without ever passing the mussels]

Sister: "Hey, dad....."

Pops: "Hay is for horses, this is seafood."

This was especially funny due to the fact that he kept a poker face the entire time and never made eye contact with my sister, being completely serious and never cracking a smile. These exchanges happen at least 7X a day.

A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5 year old son waiting for him at the door.

“Daddy, may I ask you a question ?”

“Yeah, sure, what is it ?” replied the man.

“Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?”

“That’s none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing?” the man said angrily.

“I just want to know.  Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?” pleaded the little boy.

“If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour.”

“Oh,” the little boy replied, head bowed.

Looking up, he said, “Daddy, may I borrow $9.00 please?”

The father was furious. “If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed.   Think about why you’re being so selfish.  I work long, hard hours every day and don’t have time for such childish games.”

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy’s questioning.  How dare he ask such questions only to get some money.

After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son.  May be there was something he really needed to buy with that $9.00 and he really didn’t ask for money very often.

The man went to the door of the little boy’s room and opened the door.  “Are you asleep son?” he asked.

“No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.

“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man.  “It’s been long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here’s that $9.00 you asked for.”

The little boy sat straight up, beaming.

“Oh, thank you daddy!” he yelled.

Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills.  The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again.

The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man.

“Why did you want more money if you already had some?” the father grumbled.

“Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied.

“Daddy, I have $20.00 now.  Can I buy an hour of your time?”

The father looked upon his son with a smile as he walked towards the door and said "Overtime is double pay."

Is told by the Maitre'd that there will be at least a twenty minute wait.

"Would you like to wait in the bar, Sir?", he says.

The man goes into the bar and the bartender says, "What'll it be?"

The man replies, "Give me a Stoli with a twist."

The bartender pauses for a few seconds, then smiles and says, "Once upon time, there were FOUR little peegs . . . "

My dad called me out of my room, asked me what I was doing and I told him I was revising (insert quote marks around that for yourself if you'd like). He asks me to look in the car and there's a whole crate full of packets of salt that are all leaking. That sounds weird, and to be honest it is, but my dad works at a supermarket and gets to take home faulty merchandise so I though nothing of it. He asks me to move it all into the garage, so I do so.

Then he tells me: "Actually, put it in the shed". Now I'm confused since we don't have a shed, and so I asked him what he meant. He tells me, "The one in the old house". We own two houses - our first one, and our new one, so I thought alright that's enough; the house is a half-hour walk and I honestly cannot be bothered for him asking me to walk that half an hour whilst I could be revising so I get a bit mad and just tell him straight.

He gives me a little smile and just says "Don't get salty and start shedding tears, I'll do it then". He gives me a little smile and just walks off. I'm honestly so glad I'm moving away for uni next year.

A great bundle of Internet puns; enjoy!

You despise Microsoft FrontPage as a web editing tool and as extensions to your webserver.

You can answer the question ‘is the internet broken’ without laughing.

You can spot the theme behind the following list: RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Caldera, Slackware.

You can feel the load a server is under without actually checking statistics. It ‘just isn’t running right’ actually makes sense.

You maintain more than four websites and do not have time for a personal web page.

You know all of the following people by reputation and can explain what they’ve done that is relevant to your world: Steve Case, Linus Torvalds, Eric Allman, Sanford Wallace.

You know what TCP/IP stands for, not to mention DNS, HTTP, SNMP, BGP, OSPF, and DUN. You like acronyms.

I think Bing could have totally crushed Google if they had called it “Bang”. I mean, think about it.. “I BANGED Emma Watson last night.”

The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and children are the FBI…

On the Internet you can be anything you want. It’s so strange that many people choose to be stupid.

Girls are like an internet virus: they enter your life, scan your pockets, transfer money, edit your mind, download their problems and delete your smile…

Chuck Norris created the World Wide Web using a typewriter. When Chuck Norris plays hide and seek, even google can’t find him.

A press release: “Yesterday, for the first time a hacker was convicted of network penetration and went to jail to serve a 12 years sentence. According to the data of the central computer of the police, the hacker goes to liberty the day after tomorrow because of expiration of the sentence.”

Justin Bieber got 100,000 retweets for tweeting “Live life full”. That’s just 3 random words. I’m going to try now. Jockstrap squirrel potatoes.

Facebook: “My kids are perfect.” Instagram: “My kids are beautiful.” Twitter: “My kids are why I drink.”

The facts on this website are Chuck Norris’ smallest acheivements. If you knew what he was really capable of, you would never sleep at night.

Teacher: If you spend all your time sitting round playing on the Internet, you’ll be fat and useless when you grow up. Pupil: Wow! You must have spent hours surfing when you were a kid!

What kind of doctor fixes broken websites? An URLologist.

when there was a terrible accident. The fire in his forge had gone out of control and set fire to the shop. The blacksmith nearly lost his life. He was bedridden for many months and relied on the help of his children and grandchildren to feed him, bathe him, and take care of all of his needs. Eventually he was able to get back on his feet, though his outlook on life had turned quite grim. He was now able to take care of himself, but he had lost much of his strength and dexterity from the injuries he sustained and he was unable to practice his trade. He fell into a deep depression and he spent most of his days sitting at home in front of the fireplace gazing into the flames, longing for the days when his strong hands could grasp a hammer and strike a hot piece of iron, slowly forging it into a beautiful piece of work.

One evening when the old man was sitting in front of the fire, he heard a knock at the door. It was his granddaughter, whom he hadn't seen in many months. She had overheard her father talking to her mother about how her grandfather was slowly slipping away into depression and hopelessness and she wanted to help. To the old man's surprise, she had brought him a puppy. "I thought that since you're always here all by yourself that you might want someone you keep you company," the granddaughter said. The old man's eyes welled up with tears and the little puppy instantly jumped into his arms and began licking the tears from his face. The old man and his granddaughter spent the next several hours sitting on the floor of his house watching the puppy chase around a rubber ball, bouncing, jumping, panting, and licking. In that short time, the old man had made complete turnaround from being sad, lonely, and hopeless, to smiling from ear to ear, full of joy with his new-found companion. As the hours grew late and the puppy grew tired, the granddaughter said "Well Opa, I'm glad you like your puppy, but it's late and I should be heading home. By the way, what are you going to call him?" "Life," said the old man, "because he has given me a new meaning and joy to mine." The granddaughter kissed her grandfather on the cheek, wished him goodnight, and she left.

Many years passed and all the while, the old man and his little dog were inseparable. Everywhere the old man went, Life was always with him whether it was the post office, the grocery store, and even when the old man went to the barber shop, the little dog would sit patiently until the last hair on

So every night for the past almost 6 years I sing her the Sunshine Song

You know, "you are my Sunshine, my only sunshine."

And after a few years I got tired of it and would start songs from the nightmare before Christmas (because I'm a big elfman nerd) and Part of your world (because I'm completely obsessed with singing out of key chick verses and the little mermaid is dope af) but she would SCREAM anytime I started anything that wasn't the Sunshine song, I love this, so I go on for a couple bars while she's screaming then calm her down and sing the right song. To be fair, she likes the I'm On The Outside by boingo, so I belt that too. Although it's only acceptable in the car.

Now here I want to add that in the description of the event I will place a * where she interrupts me and the words immediately after that * will be her words.

Ok, so she's in bed just now and I said What song do you want me to sing?

Obvs sunshine dude.

So I start with the "look at this stuff, isn't it neat?"

And she's not screaming, she has a smile on her face so my mind is like "did she become ok with this, can I finally sing a different song than sunshine and eponas song?" So I keep going thinking that I finally won.

I get to the line, "Fliiping your fins, you won't get too **fart!"

I'm fucking dead this kid played me like a fiddle.

Someone call 911 I'm ded

This one was about two years ago, but it was one of my favorite memories of work due to the reaction it got. There's a little bit of a setup/backstory for this.

I landed a job at the local Sam's Club before it opened, so I, along with the other associates, was to attend a credit training event at a very nice bank in town.

There were probably 30 or 40 in the class and most of us knew each other pretty well because we had spent the past few weeks 'blitzing,' or selling Sam's Club memberships at Walmarts in the area.

Anyway, the credit guy (his name fails me) was giving a powerpoint presentation on the ins and outs of the Sam's credit accounts. At one point, he said that for pre-approved members, a piece of paper called a 'chit' will print out. There were a few chuckles and he smiled and said "yeah, I know," and carried on.

Then I raised my hand.

He called on me, and I began: "So if a church with a business membership is pre-approved, who's responsible for applying? A church accountant or one of the clergy or something?"

"Yes, whoever owns the account itself."

"Would that be considered a 'holy chit?'"

The class erupted in laughter and one associate even left the room because she was laughing so hard. I saw one of the managers in class with us had his head buried in his arms laughing to the point of tears.

Probably my finest moment.

So, it's service week at my school and I decided to serve locally at a nearby elementary school. I was assigned to a 3rd grade class. On the second day, the whole class was setting up Google Classroom, and after completing it, one of the little buggers looked at me said with a huge smile

"I'm done!"

Being a man of culture, I naturally responded with

"Hi Done! I'm [Dakkadence]."

The little girl looked at me, groaned, and facepalmed. She whined

"That's my dad's joke!"

With kids getting such an upbringing, I'm slowly regaining my faith for the next generation.

Edit: A word.

For a little bit of background information, my dad suffers from multiple system atrophy and got a high fever, which turned out to be from a bad urinal tract infection. He has been at the hospital for almost 2 weeks now, and it is really hard on our family, but he is doing his best to get better and throws this small dad joke to lighten me and my brothers day.

A Speech Therapist comes every day to help him focus on his muscles in his face to help him swallow and speak clearer with simple gestures of noises and deep breathing. As she was done with his exercises, she said to him "Can you say goodbye, have a nice day! in a long sentence?" (As in one breath with no pauses). My dad then takes a look at me and my brother and says in his slurred voice "goodbye... have a nice day... in a long sentence".

The Speech Therapist just smiled and shook her head while we facepalmed...

Thumbs up Dad, I know you will come home soon!

[Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to share this with you]

Ok, so technically this was before I knew I was a dad at the time, and it happened a long time ago, so I'm paraphrasing it a bit (have to leave out some details. It's work related lol), but I'm really proud of it.

I was having this workplace dispute with this really snively guy who was being a bit of a prick about some work assignment he was really proud of. Long story short, he was worried about someone else taking credit for something and wanted me to talk to our boss about it for him (What does he think I am lol). Anyway, as I'm walking away I hear him coughing. So I turn around, and with this great big smile on my face, I'm like:

"Don't choke on your aspirations, mate."

Anyway, I thought it was a great line. I was smiling all the way back to my office. I don't know why it came to my mind at that moment, but it wasn't long before I'd meet my kids for the first time in years, and it was really great to reconnect with them.

Anyway, my kids are pretty popular (my son's a school teacher, so I don't want to embarrass him in front of the kids), and my daughter would be mortified to hear a dadjoke this terrible great so I'd appreciate if you didn't mention any details about me in the comments (might spoil their evening lol) it was just a nice little moment.

Anyway, just wanted to share the moment with you guys.

D. [To the mods, I know this is a kind of just a pun, but I thought it was worth posting here. I hope you guys understand.]

Just found this subreddit and, being a dad, I figured I needed to share some material...

I'm checking out at the home improvement store, my wife standing next to me as the bubble-headed cashier rings me up. She gets to a bag of six inch galvanized spikes that I was buying for an outdoor project. Trying to look up the price in her book, our ditzy cashier holds one up and says, "Is this nine inches?" I smile and turn to my wife saying, "Her boyfriend must love her. He's got her convinced that that's nice inches..."

At that point my wife slapped me saying, "You're disgusting!" and our little airhead just stood there and had no idea why.

Went and got some food yesterday and happened to have a coupon for a free extra value meal, but the cashier needed a manager's code. It took like 3 or 4 minutes for her to come up. After she typed in the code she apologized, explaining that she was in the walk-in freezer.

As she walked away I raised my voice loud enough so she could hear me and said, "Thanks for doing that, you seem really cool."

She actually turned around and gave me a little scowly smile like, "that's not funny wait why am I smiling."

...to find his house with the lights dimmed down and candles surrounding the bed in the bedroom. He finds his wife there, laying abroad with sexy panties and a pink bra, and her bangs covering her left eye. She smiles. "Tonight," she says. "Is going to be the sexiest and most passionate night of your life, sweetie." The husband smiles as his wife gets up and unties his tie for him, and unbuckles his pants. He can't wait. "Lets try role playing." she says. "I'll be your slutty little daughter, and you'll be my father who needs to teach me... discipline..." He grins widely, liking where this is going. His wife grabs him and pulls him down to the bed. She whispers in his ear. "I'm so horny..." The husband enjoys this and decides to follow along with the role playing. He then whispers back in her ear. "Hi, horny. I'm dad."

Sorry, but I need to vent!! So I went to Target to get some clearance Halloween stuff. I noticed this lady was staring at me in the same aisle I was in. No biggie. I moved to the next aisle and here she comes. Again... STARING! So now I'm like, What is her problem?! I finish up my shopping and head to the check out line. Of course who is there ahead of me but this same lady. She turns around and starts staring again. So I start playing with my phone b/c I'm getting a little uncomfortable. Finally she says "I want to apologize for staring at you, but you look just like my son who just passed away." I felt really bad after that and gave her my condolences. She says "Thank you...but I have a favor to ask. I know it's weird and understand if you don't want to, but can you give me a hug and say 'Bye Mama' to me?" Inside I was like buuuuh?!??!, but understanding grief the way that I do, I went ahead and did it. She smiles, thanks me, and leaves. The cashier rings up my stuff and the total comes out to $100.87. I knew something wasn't right, because it should have been like $40 or so. The cashier then tells me that my total was included with my mom's. I'm like, "What?!!!" She said, "Your mom said you were paying for her last few items along with your things. I told her that the woman was most definitely NOT my mom. She said, well I saw you hug her and heard you call her mama. I'm like OMG...I flew out of the store looking for this horrible person, ready to drag her back in, I see her loading up her car! She saw me and jumped in her car, I got to her as she was putting her leg in, and I started pulling her leg hard enough that her wooden leg came off!! Omg how is this happening right now?! So I grabbed her other leg and started pulling! Just like I'm pulling yours right now!

The bus ride to the station had been very stressful. I spent the entire time worrying if the bus even stopped at the train station. I ended up spending nearly an hour making two loops around the city before I finally realized that I had to hop off near the station. Public transport. Jesus.

I'd missed the train I wanted to catch due to my hour-long bus ride, so I had some time to kill before the next one arrived. It had been cold and raining when I left in the morning, but by lunch time it was warm and I was sweating, standing on the station in a big yellow hoodie and jeans.

I had overslept and skipped breakfast earlier, so I resolved not to let the loud farts coming from the old man next to me kill my appetite. I was desperate for a snack.

Initially the vending machine told me it would accept "EXACT CHANGE ONLY". Slightly annoying, but no real problem: I just fished out my change, inserted some alternative coins and punched in the number. I watched the object of my desire inch forwards, ready to drop into the bottom where I could collect it. For some reason I was terrified that it might get stuck. Robbed by a robot, how embarrassing. Luckily the packet fell into the tray. Finally something was going my way.

As I reached into the bottom of the machine and pushed open the metal door, it suddenly stuck. It was wedged in place and the gap was too small for my snack to fit through. "Motherfucker..." I whispered under my breath.

But I was too invested to give up now. Determined not to be beaten by a bloody machine, I pulled hard and the packet burst, spilling chips into the tray. I managed to salvage about half of the crisps and ate them greedily. Partially crushed, but still deliciously cheesy.

At this point it occurred to me that perhaps I should tell the station operator that the vending machine was broken. I walked up to the ticket office and saw a bored, tired looking man in his forties. "I just thought I'd let you know the vending machine is jammed," I announced.

The attendant got up, walked over over to the vending machine and gave it a solid kick, dislodging the little metal door which had foiled me. When he turned to me again his expression had changed from boredom to amusement. "So what flavour was it then? Strawberry?"

I groaned, but couldn't resist a smile.

I knew it was going to be a good day.

A Christmas Poem
by Dad (1952–2009)

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the shack,
Not a creature was stirring, we was all in the sack;

Our mugs were placed on the mantle with cheer,
In hope that Saint Nick would bring us a beer;

And me I was tucked up all snug in my bed,
But strains of sweet music still danced through my head;

So I sprang from my bed with a crash and a clatter,
And off down the hall with bare feet did I patter;

There on the chair sat my musical pipe,
So I sat down to play without fanfare or hype;

Come Mozart, come Hayden, Stravinski and Strauss,
And write me some music to bring down the house;

When down from the chimney appeared with a crash,
A strange little man in the smoke and the ash;

He wiggled and jumped and got up like a shot,
Came over and said, "Man those cinders are hot!";

His stomach it shook like a bowl full of jelly,
For a moment I thought it was dear old aunt Nelly;

His nose like a cherry, his ears like two jugs,
I was worried that this guy just might be on drugs;

His language was foul, his jokes they were crass,
So I opened the door and threw him out on his ass;

But then as I turned, boy was I ever surprised;
I saw what he'd bought me, or so I surmised;

For there in the corner right under the tree,
Was some brand new sheet music and a case of O.V.;

I turned to say thank-you but found he had gone,
He was not in the garden and not on the lawn;

And just when I thought that he couldn't get far,
I realized the old goat had stolen the car;

Off in the distance he said with a wheeze,
"I hated to do it but you left me the keys!";

I smiled and laughed for this much I could savour,
For I'd just sold the car to my idiot neighbour;

And once more he called as he drove out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and don't drive when you're tight!"

Thank you for everything, Dad. We love and miss you.