Stories We Tell Puns

Without missing a beat my dad goes "Why didn't they just keep him in the trunk.

I'm still laughing like a drunken seal.

Killed them both.

Everyone knows the story about William Tell shooting an apple off his son's head but not many know that the Tell family was huge into bowling, even joined a league. Sadly, the records weren't kept safe and to this very day we have no idea for whom the Tells bowled.

A man named Dave comes home very drunk late at night...

So this guy has been drinking with his buddies all night and he's as drunk as a skunk, gets home, falls up the stairs, undresses and goes to bed next to his wife. He falls asleep and next thing he knows, bang, he dies and finds himself waiting at the pearly gates.

The guy refuses to believe this is happening, he says to St. Peter: "This can't be possible, I'm a healthy man! This is not the way I die. You have to let me return down there!"
The guy can see St. Peter looks like he's feeling sorry for him, but he tells him that unfortunately, there's no policy for allowing people back on Earth. The guy insists: "But come on, there's got to be something you can do! I'll put up with anything, really, as long as you let me go back down."
So St. Peters tells him: "Well really, there's just this one possibility: you can go back, but only as a hen. That's the only thing we can allow." The guy guesses that this really is his only chance, so he agrees reluctantly.
So he's back on Earth in this beautiful chicken coop, the sun is shining, there's green grass everywhere, this is hen paradise. The other hens greet him with delight and he tells them his story, everything goes nicely. But then he feels kind of unwell, there's something wrong with his stomach. He asks this old hen: "Tell me, I've got this weird feeling in my belly, I'm not too well. What is happening to me?"

The old hen: "Well dearie, we hens lay eggs, you know. I bet you've never laid a nice egg before... You need to push it out now, and you'll feel much better after!"
So the guy pushes and pushes, and wham, out pops his first egg. The old hen congratulates him and he feels much better. But not 5 minutes later, his pain comes back. He returns to the old hen for advice.

"Well dearie, it's quite special but it happens that you need to lay TWO eggs, so go back there and keep pushing!"
So he goes back to his nest and pushes, and nothing comes, and he pushes harder, and wham, out comes his second egg! He feels much better, but not 2 minutes later, you guessed it, he's back in terrible pain and goes to see the old hen.

"What's this bullshit here, and don't tell me I've got a third egg to lay!" The old hen can't make head or tail of it and just tells him that when in doubt, he should be pushing. So the guy goes back to work and then, wham, his wife wakes him up with this smashing slap in the face and yells: "*Dave! Dave wake up you’re

Trevor loved tractors. And I mean, really loved tractors. Forget any obsessions or high-level interests you may have, chances are they pale in the face of Trevor’s love for tractors.

Every day Trevor would get up, in his tractor-themed bedroom in his tractor-themed house, with its tractor-themed wallpaper and tractor-themed carpets, and he would make his bed with its tractor-themed duvet and tractor-themed sheets. He would go downstairs in his tractor-themed pajamas into his tractor-themed kitchen, with its tractor-themed tiles and cupboards, and he would eat his breakfast while perusing the latest tractor-themed magazine or annual.

Trevors’s degree in Agricultural Engineering hung on his living room wall, along with a copy of his thesis, which centred around (you guessed it) tractors. The living room was decorated with all sorts of tractor-related trinkets, including die-cast models, paintings and drawings.

The hedges in Trevor’s front garden were trimmed in the shape of tractors. His lawn was vividly decorated with tractor-driving garden gnomes, and his garden furniture was constructed from various parts from vintage tractor designs.

Trevor just had one thing missing from his otherwise tractor-centric life; he had never actually owned, nor driven, a real tractor.

Not for his lack of trying, of course. Trevor had been to many tractor shows over the years, and visited many farms with friends of his, but none of the tractors he had seen had ever been quite right. Trevor was so knowledgeable about tractors that every single one he had come across had possessed some hidden trait that he wasn’t keen on. His first experience of driving a real tractor had to be perfect.

One day, Trevor was flicking through one of his favourite publications, Powertrain Quarterly, when there was a knock at the door. Trevor answered, and it was his friend and fellow tractor enthusiast, Jeff.

Trevor welcomed Jeff in, and over tea and crumpets served on tractor-themed crockery, they discussed the merits of aluminium drawbars and front-end loaders. Eventually Trevor pressed Jeff to explain the reason for his visit.

“Well” said Jeff, “As I’m sure you know the convention comes to town later”.

The convention. Trevor had been thinking of little else the past three weeks. The neighbouring town annually threw a convention for farmers, particularly farmyard machinery. There would be combine harvesters, lawnmowers, and of course, tractors.

“Yes of course” replied Trevor

(the joke makes more sense in dutch)

My dad talking to my nephew about his pet horse he used to have.

"My horse was an oddball, wherever we'd go he'd look for water to splash around in. one time we went to the beach and he'd jump into the water and swim around."

Two weeks later we're hanging out and my aunt tells dad she heard the story about his horse, and asked what kind of horse it was.

"a seahorse"

(in dutch he talked about a dog, and a seal in dutch is "zeehond" (seadog))

So it was my first time meeting my girlfriend's family and it was a holiday so I had assumed it would go like how it is in the movies, the guy being constantly criticized by the girl's family and told he's not good enough but I must have lucked out as they absolutely loved me, after we had the traditional thanksgiving meal at around 4, her family and I went to the porch to drink and joke around. On the way out to the porch, buzzed me thought it would be hilarious to take someone's ukelele with me and hide it on the porch, I promised myself that before the day is over, I'd use that ukelele as a joke piece and get everyone to love me even more. So the evening is going great, everyone's drunk, laughing, telling funny family stories when all of a sudden, I stand up, get everyone's attention and I grab the ukelele, picked it up and said

"I like to play a little guitar"

The hysterical, drunken laughs of everyone on the porch was the highlight of the best Thanksgiving I've ever had.

I'm here today to tell you all a horrible story, so that none of you have to go through the same experience as my friend.

My friend, Hugh, is a very religious man, who is also involved in our community. 2 weeks ago, our local church burned down and Hugh believed it was his Christian duty to help them get back on their feet. Hugh allowed the friars of the church to set up a cart in his mall to sell their flowers. Every day, the friars came in at 7:00 in the morning with a bushel of beautiful flowers and began to work diligently to arrange them into bouquets. All was going well, the mall was generating more revenue and the church was making more money than they were by selling the flowers in front of the church on Sunday. Everyone was happy; until that first weekend.

Our town is kinda tourist-y, so we get some out-of-towners on the weekends. A gay couple came to the mall the first weekend that the friars had taken up shop (Typically, our town is pretty progressive, but the friars tended to be uber-conservative). The couple came over to the cart and admired the flowers; they tried to purchase a bouquet, but the friars refused to sell to them. The couple was outraged and went to see Hugh directly. They complained to him that the friars were being discriminatory, so Hugh promised to have a talk with the friars. When Hugh confronted the friars, they refused to sell to the couple on the grounds that “they were committing an atrocity in the eyes of the lord.” The couple stormed off and promised to boycott the cart.

This past weekend, the couple came back with a large group and a letter from the mayor, saying that the friars had to sell to them, regardless of sexual preference. The friars stood firm and refused to sell to them, so the group started a protest. They brought in signs and started chanting around the cart. The friars continued to sell their flowers and Hugh allowed them to remain, so eventually the protest began to boycott the mall, rather than just the cart.

By today, the mall had lost 50% of its normal weekend revenue. The group sent a letter to Hugh saying that they could forgive him if he shut down the flower cart within the week. Hugh was pretty broken up, but he had no choice. To maintain his livelihood, he would have to kick the friars out of his store. He talked with the friars this morning and revoked their previous agreement. The friars had their cart packed and left by 7:30, to huge cheers from the community. The mall has been pretty norm

... on Friday night and parked in a zone that allowed 24 hour parking on weekends, but only 2 hour parking during the week. While he was there, a family member slipped something into his drink and sold him to a gang that traffics in frog legs. After the amputation he was taken to a hospital. He woke up to his mother telling him him the story you just read. He was a bit froggy from the sedatives, so he said "whaaaa?".

She replied: "I to'd you, toad, you got towed because you we're de-toed by de toad.

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"

So everyone was talking and Grandpa said he had a good story to tell us. He said he was talking to someone when he was out shopping and she asked him how long he and Grandma were married, so he lets her know - 57 years. The woman is surprised and asks him how they stayed married so long, and he said "Well we couldn't get a divorce, because neither one of us wanted custody of the kids."

HI I’m Tim the turtle, yes a real turtle. And I would like to tell you the story of my best friend. I once had a friend by the name of Sam. Sam of course was a clam. A real live honest to goodness clam. He was my best buddy, but unfortunately he smoked and drank and ran around with loose women (and a few men). I was more of the goodie two shoes type. I never drank, never smoked, I didn’t even swear. But for some reason Sam and I were the best of friends. I guess you can say we were the epitome of opposites attracting. One day as we were hanging out walking along the beach Sam, after his fifth cigarette in a row, had a heart attack and died. I was heart broken. My best friend died right there in front of me and he never repented his evil ways. I was sure he would spend eternity in damnation. Sigh. Being the goodie two shoes type I was still extremely healthy well into my old age. I missed my friend terribly for many years. On his birthday I would host a party and invite his old stripper girlfriends and poker buddies around to relive stories. It was always a fun evening, but in the end left me more lonely than before. Eventually, my broken heart couldn’t stand it anymore and I too died. I was pleased to find that there was a heaven. Being an almost saint I was whisked directly past the line to the Pearly Gates to be greeted by St. Peter. A big grin erupted on his face and he came right around his desk to give me a great big hug. “Tim”, he said, “You have been such a good person back on earth that God has asked me to grant you any wish you would like before even entering heaven”. To say I was flabbergasted is an understatement. I thought for a minute, I guess God expected me to ask for more time on earth, but I knew what I really wanted to do was to visit with my old friend Sam. So I asked. Poor St. Peter didn’t know what to say. You know Sam is in Hell right? Well I knew that was a strong possibility so I wasn’t surprised. Peter excused himself for a while and went to check with the big guy himself. He was gone quite some time, but eventually he returned. Peter said my request was approved, but under a few conditions. First, I would have to carry a golden harp as a passport back into heaven. This harp could only be carried by a good soul so I couldn’t be replaced by a look alike demon. Second, I would have to return by midnight. God didn’t want me to face too much temptation. I agreed to these conditions and took the highway down to hell. (Nope n

So we were at a certain popular buffet chain, and when my dad 54-year-old with a long white beard went up to pay, the Spanish cashier asked if he was eligible for the senior discount, for ages 65+.

He strokes his beard and says "Nope, I'm not quite there yet.

I was standing behind him waiting to go eat, and I said "Well maybe you should try talking Spanish? Then you will be a señor!"

She gave us the discount, everybody around us cracked up laughing, applause was had, and the Albert Einstein behind us gave me $100. (Seriously though, they both laughed, she gave us the $0.59 discount, and Dad tells this story every chance he gets.)

We were out for dinner with a few friends, and one named Griffin. As we walked up to the entrance of the restaurant, one of the staff greeted us and opened the door for us. Griffin was turned around, telling us some hilarious story, so he didn't see this. As such, I said what any polite person would say under the circumstances: "Griffin, Door."

I apologize for this wall of text, I didn't know where I should cut out parts because they're all relevant to the story. Sorry again.

Hey TFR people! So for background, I work at a kiosk in a mall where I repair cracked phones and do other mind numbing work that I can now probably do in my sleep. I've been doing this job for a little over two years and can fix an iPhone, for example, in about 15 minutes. I apologize for the wall of text. Anyway, this story happened last night.

So, a family of three walk up (mother, father and daughter) but only the father spoke to me and this is where conversation starts. Note: When I was handed this girls phone she had a case with this image on it and was already about to laugh. Customer will be C and I of course will be Me.

C: How much does it cost to fix my daughters phone and can it be fixed?

Me: Oh it's very repairable, after tax and labor, it comes to $xxx.xx.

C: Do it

Fuck, he's one of these guys...

Me: Alright then, I just need a name and signature on this disclaimer we have.

At this point, I've taken their phone and am prepping to work on it.

C: Do I have to use my real name?

PAUSE Now, over the 2+ years I've worked here, I have never heard this question. So I was kind of taken by surprise by it. For a minute, I thought he was one of those paranoid people. PLAY

Me: Um.. Well I guess you don't have to. It's preferred since we can look you up in our system faster later.

C: Oh ok.

I turn back around and start to use my tools on the phone when customer guy throws me another curve ball question.

C: Can my daughter still play the piano when this is done?

I manage to turn and see him smirking a little and go back to his serious poker face so I pick up that he's joking.

Me: Well I would hope so. Slight laughter

C: Oh ok great! She's never even touched one before so it's good to hear her skill won't change in the slightest.

I'm on the verge of outright laughing at this point. I manage to hold it back and finish my repair. I snap her grumpy cat case back on, hand her phone back when she mentions the home button isn't working.

Oh that's an easy fix

Me: Ah, don't worry. Give me one second and I'll have that fixed.

C: One. Try it now "Insert girls name"

Me: Haha well I haven't done what I need to yet.

I pull out a giant clear bag half full of spare parts.

**

So my wife is working on Genealogy stuff, and was asking her dad about some of his family history. After telling a few stories about some of his other uncles, he comes to his uncle Charles. "I was named after him, you know..." he tells us.

We look at him more than a bit incredulously, as his name is Michael.

He smiles and says "What? I sure as hell wasn't named BEFORE him..."

I say Middle Eastern cuz I honestly forget if he's Iraqi or Iranian. We were getting to know each other, and I asked him to tell me a fable from his country of origin. It went like this:

Ali: In (the town he grew up in), there is a tower. A very very tall tower, many stories high, with only stairs. And legend says that if you climb all the way to the very top...

(pause)

Me: What happens?

Ali: completely straight face You will get very dizzy.

That was it. I thought it was hilarious.

EDIT: I somehow JUST saw the Mod Sticky post from last week, where a lot of users have expressed similar sentiments to these. I apologize to the mods if this is not appropriate and respect your decision if you want to delete it. I just wanted to see if people were thinking the same kind of thing. Still, read it if ya like.

It used to be that /r/dadjokes was a place to post actual stories of real dad humor. 'My dad pulled out this groaner at dinner.' 'Just became a dad...I think I get it now!' These are the things that warm my heart and tickle my corny bone. And I don't think I'm alone.

Now, we're arrogant enough to think we know the formula for dad humor, so we can post anything reminiscent of it, and it counts as a dad joke. It's as if we think we own dad humor now, and we can bend it and shape it at will.

Let me tell you, folks. WE DO NOT OWN DAD HUMOR.

Even the dads among us don't own it. I think the universe just channels it through them in brilliant, glorious, involuntary sneezes. Some are more deft than others, and are seen by the universe as more worthy outlets. But they do not own it.

We can get close to elusive heart of dad humor, we can approach it, we can dance around it...but we can never touch it. This is where I take issue with posts like this one, which currently has over 4000 upvotes and 2000 net karma. Is it reminiscent of dad-like punly-ness? Would a dad chortle heartily at reading it? Yes, almost certainly yes. But does that make it a dad joke? No...I would argue not.

Dad jokes are also not just about the jokes themselves. They're about the response--that he manages to be surprised at his own genius, even on the eightieth repetition. They're about the face-palms and straight stares of family members. What is a dad joke without context?

My proposed solution: ban link/image posts. I wish it wouldn't have to come to that, but I can't see another way to get back on track to the real goal here. I have hover zoom--I understand the desire for instant gratification. I've skipped over interesting looking videos because they required a click.

But that's not why I come here.

I understand that there are legitimate dad jokes transmitted via text, or perhaps requiring a bit of visual context. At this point, though, I think they are a necessary sacrifice for a righteous cause. They can always be transcribed into text, or included in a self-post. Maybe it seems a bit extreme, especially in the face

So, a little story Alright, so I'd say I was in about 6th or 7th grade. One day my Grandpa (Pop) and I are driving down the road, for some irrelevant time story amount of time. We end up down some country road that passes a bunch of cattle fields, and as we're driving he turns down the radio and he asks "Do you think those cows are very smart?" And I ask why. He responds with "You know, cause they're out standing in the field." That man, let me tell you.

Alright, fast forward to about 3~4 years. My friend and I were driving to another friends house, and we ended up on the same road, with the same cows in the field. Guess what I asked him. And I swear on my Grandfather's grave, my friend stopped his car, and asked me to get out.

My Dad tells this story all the time. He goes into great detail about what we bought at the mall and what the pig looked like, just to make it more believable. It usually takes a good 20 minutes to tell the story, it's nearly impossible to keep a straight face.

Did I ever tell you about the time we hit a pig on the highway? We were driving home from the mall and all of a sudden, BAM, we hit a pig. We didn't know what to do. The car wasn't damaged and we couldn't see what happened to the pig, so we just drove home. That night, we get a phone call and it's the police. "Sir, were you driving on I85 this afternoon", the police officer says. "Yes, I was officer" "Did you know it's against the law to leave the scene after running over a farm animal? That will be a $500 fine", says the officer. "No sir I didn't know it was against the law. But I've got to ask, how did you know it was me that ran over the pig?" The police officer responds, "The pig squealed"

Back in the late 80's, my dad had a joke he loved to tell everyone he met. It went something like this:

I was driving down the road and ended up behind this ambulance with its rear door open. I tried honking and flashing my lights to get their attention about it, but they didn't seem to notice. As they turned the corner away from us, a small cooler fell out. I pulled over to rescue the cooler, and when I opened it, I found a human toe, on ice.

At this point, the victim of the joke is supposed to ask what he did with the toe. He responds with "I called the Tow Truck!" and hearty laughter.

Being the 1980's, e-mail wasn't prevalent, and calling long distance could get expensive, so he communicated with his out of state family primarily through mailed letters. He wrote this joke (sans punchline) in a letter to his mom. Not knowing it was a joke, she told the story to her friends and family. My aunt heard this story, and told it to her classes (she's a teacher) and one of her students actually got in a fight with his mom who said that could never happen.

A month or two later, we were getting together for a holiday and the toe story came up in conversation. My dad replied that he called the tow truck, and his laughter was met with horrified stares. By this time, nearly everyone in the small town was enthralled with this amazing story that my grandma had told about her son who lived in the city. She was imagining all of the people she had to contact to tell the real story to. Many took it in stride, but others were quite annoyed. Especially my aunt, who had to apologize to every one of her classes at school.

TLDR: A dad joke with no punch line doesn't belong in a letter.

Years ago I used to use a LexisNexis database of companies that would give corporate information like name, address, and general business description. While most of them were pretty bland, there were a bunch of them with some really cheesy puns, and over a few years I built quite a collection.

Today I share with you "NEXIS IS RIDICULOUS.txt":

• Bucyrus International caters to those who mine their own business.
• It would be logical for Mr. Spock to boldly go to Vulcan International for rubber products. He might even live long and prosper -- in comfortable shoes.
• What do manufacturer Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) and 1970s band Grand Funk Railroad have in common? They both want you to do the locomotion!
• Peter Piper can pick more than a peck of peppers or pickles from B&G Foods.
• Toray Plastics America could sing "foam, foam on the range, where the polyester and polypropylene materials are made" all day.
• Break out the Tums, because things are awfully gassy over at Air Liquide America.
• If a tree falls in a Weyerhaeuser forest, someone is there to hear it -- and he has a chainsaw.
• Although not a pushover, you can walk all over Wilsonart International.
• Here's a HEICO haiku: HEICO companies/ Providing for jet engines/ In flight or on land.
• American Italian Pasta Company (AIPC) uses its noodle in many different ways.
• The golf industry doesn't mind when Aldila gives it the shaft.
• Rat-a-tat-tat and a ringa-ding-ding. What's that? Answer: The sounds emanating from Pearl, one of the world's foremost makers of drums and other percussion and musical instruments.
• Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics deals powders and crystal, but there's no need to call the cops.
• Pamida Stores Operating Company offers more small-town values than a bandwagon of Republicans on the campaign trail.
• Like a tight end, offshore drilling contractor Transocean dreams of going deep but doesn't mind eating a little mud.
• Rittal me this, Batman!
• Utility Trailer Manufacturing is spreading its own brand of reefer madness.
• Who is the Fresh Prince of Sullair?
• If GrafTech International were a bard, it could wax poetic in an ode to the electrode.
• When it comes to adhesives and vibration control products, LORD knows.
• You might say that Deere & Company enjoys its customers going to seed.
• Pfizer pfabricates pfarmaceuticals pfor quite a pfew inpfirmities.
• Stripping is OK at Spraylat.
• Don't think Seton is

My dad was a carpenter and would start to tell me a story in such an honest way I thought for sure he was serious;

"Ya know, this one time we were building this house, and this damn cat kept coming in and bothering us all day. So my buddy Jimmy put some gas in a cap and the cat drank the whole thing... Suddenly, it jumped up and ripped all over the room bouncing off walls and crashing into everything. Then, it just fell over....."

waits for you to say

"Did it die?"

"Nope. Ran outta gas."

I am currently in a intercultural communication class in college. Because its the beginning of the semester we always have to do some goofy activity and because the class is about culture everyone would tell something interesting about theirs. So this little Asian kid in class starts talking about customs growing up. He says how when he was little he remembers his father farting, and his dad asking why he is not clapping "in this culture you clap after your father farts." The whole time hes telling this I am thinking...no way...this dad is a savage. I kind of got a feeling he was starting to pick up on it, he started talking slow and thinking about it. Long story short: he clapped after his dad farted presumably for years, practicing their culture. What do you think?

Once upon a time, when I was a wee lad, still in Boy Scouts, I went on a camping trip to Montana with my troop. It was going to be a great time, enjoying the cool weather and scenic views of the evergreen forests. However, we did have one issue: Montana is pretty notorious for having lots of bears. We weren't scared though, since our park ranger guide told us that bears can be scared off by making lots of noise, like yelling or hitting sticks on trees. Anyway, me and one of my friends, we'll call him Frank, were out exploring in the woods. We were doing what we were told to scare off the bears, but we were still a little antsy.

After a while, we got hungry, so we decided to sit down and eat our packed lunch. We found a nice log to sit on and rest our feet, and we put down our packs and started to sit. But then, Frank let out the BIGGEST scream I've ever heard! Then, he took off running, fast as a cheetah. I thought, "Uh, oh! Frank must've seen a bear!", so I took off after him. Frank was running so fast, we must have run for miles at breakneck speed. Eventually, he started to tire, and as I got closer, I saw why Frank screamed and started running. He had sat on a bear trap, and it was stuck fast to his rear end! We had a good laugh about it, but the bear trap really did leave its mark.

It's been a long time since that happened, and Frank hasn't run in while, but I like to tell this story because it explains why Frank's only half-fast now.

(If you don't get the joke, say the last sentence out loud)

My grandpa was telling a story. His high school was the Hammond Warriors and the barber in town cut all the basketball boys' hair into a mohawk for a game.

dad: "i thought it was the Hammond Eggs." (ham and eggs pun)

grandpa: "no, we were the Warriors."

A couple we're friendly with have a really cute 3-year-old girl who loves to play with the small animals in the backyard (mostly toads). Recently the girl found a bird a little later than their pet cat did, and didn't realize the bird was dead. Her mom, being a bit strange and not wanting to explain death to her daughter quite yet, puts on a pair of yard gloves and -- when the daughter wasn't looking -- sticks the dead bird up in a tree. Tells her daughter, "look, he's napping in the tree."

At this point in the story I chime in, "Weekend at Birdie's!"

First off, I'm new here. I've only been a dad for a few years but, I'm not sure i'll ever be able to top this and the circumstances of the set up were so chance and specific, I will never be able to use this again. This is what inspired me to seek you out and tell my story.

So, like most thanksgivings, we went to a relatives house and had very large but unusually early dinner. We went home and by nine or ten o'clock we had the little one off to sleep and my wife and I were getting hungry and wanted something simple. She asked for fast food and I was willing to oblige.

I drove to Taco Bell and it was closed. I called my wife, "sorry Taco Bell is closed. What do you want from BK?". I then drove to BK and discovered it was also closed. Called the wife "Sorry honey, BK is closed. What do you want from McDonald's?". You might see were this is going and, if you haven't already guessed it, Micky D's was closed too."Ok, I'm just going to the gas station. What do you want?" She asked for cheddar fries and I was willing to oblige. Got in side, no cheddar fries! I grab her funyuns. She like funyuns, it will be fine. As a joke (not the one we are leading up to) I called her on my way home and told her the gas station was closed too.

I got home, told her the truth about the gas station and gave her the back up back up back up back up back up plan bag of funyuns. She joked around about the number of times I had failed her in one outing (keep in mind, I had been giving her a hard time through this whole event) and then asked me for a soda from the fridge. So is This when the magic happened. I was opening the fridge when the gravity of the situation and what was at stake here suddenly struck me. I closed the fridge, got out a glass and filled it with water. I brought it back to her in the living room. She says "why did you bring me water?"

THE FRIDGE WAS CLOSED!

My dad told me this the first time on Halloween night back when I was 9. He tells it to this day to any of my cousins, nephews, or any kids that happen to linger too long at the house when he's giving out candy. It's a long one but I have always enjoyed it.

Back when I was about your age, I went on a Halloween adventure. There was an old abandoned house on our street where a series of grisly axe murders had taken place years before. The house had never sold and was left vacant and was left to fall apart. There was a local legend that if you went into the house on Halloween night, you'd be confronted by the ghost of the murderer himself, still looking for more victims to add to his terrifying story.

My friend Tom and I decided to go through with it one year. Knowing everyone would be too terrified to go into the house, we snuck in easily on Halloween night. The place was falling apart inside, the carpet was wet and moldy and the wallpaper was peeling off everywhere. We headed down carefully to the basement down a set of creaky stairs.

At first we found nothing. Just an empty creepy old house. Suddenly we felt as if we were being watched. I was looking through one of the rooms in the large basement when I suddenly heard Tom shriek. I spun around and turned my flashlight and Tom was being chased by something, no someone. It looked like it was the murderer! A crazed man with an axe!

We turned and tried to run anywhere. We were in the basement but couldn't get up the stairs because we were blocked. We ran into the side room which looked like it might have been the laundry years ago. We locked the door and looked for a way out. The only thing we could find was a small window that opened onto ground level. As I climbed out I heard a pounding on the door. I managed to wriggle my way through the window and turned around to help my friend Tom. Panicking, he managed to get his top half through the window when I noticed the pounding stop.

Tom was stuck! I kept trying to pull him up but I couldn't. I pulled as hard as I could as Tom panicked and thrashed even more. I thought something had him caught, but it was even worse. The murderer had gotten behind him and was holding him back! He was too strong for me to overcome and he was pulling Tom's leg!

Just like I've been pulling yours this whole time.

There's a church in the country that is looking for a bell ringer for church on Sundays. A guy comes in for the job but he has no arms. The priest says "How are you going to ring the bell with no arms?"

"Come up in the bell tower with me and I'll show you."

The priest figures he'll humor him so when they get up there the backs all the way up to one side and runs full force into the side of the bell sending a "BONG" across the valley. The priest is so impressed he hires him. That Sunday the time comes and our bell ringer is all ready, backed into the corner. Runs full force and slips at the last minute falling to his death 100 feet below. A detective comes to investigate so the priest tells him the whole story. "We have to notify his next of kin, do you know his name?"

"No, but his face rings a bell."

The church now has to replace this guy so another guy comes in and coincidence of coincidences, he has no arms either. Same method of ringing the bell. Same accident. "Do you know his name?"

"No, but he's a dead ringer for the other guy."

The CIA had changed its recruiting practices, what with all the recent leaks and other problems. So Mr. Johnson was more than a little surprised to see a pine tree, which was dressed in a rather nice suit, waiting outside his office when he arrived at 9 am. He asked his secretary, "Gladys, who is this?"

"Mr. Johnson, this is Mr. Cone, our newest hire. He wanted to talk with you about the Honduras assignment."

Mr. Johnson spoke to Mr. Cone in his office. His new pine tree colleague was very knowledgeable and well-spoken, but there was something about him that threw Mr. Johnson off. He tried to dismiss his concerns as imaginary, but it gnawed at him all through the morning. He barely touched his lunch, as some of the things Mr. Cone had said were still swirling around and around in his mind. He was sure something was wrong, so he went in to see the head of their office branch, Mr. Smith.

"Johnson! Come right in, come right in," said Mr. Smith, puffing on a cigar. Mr. Johnson poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and sipped at it nervously.

"You're being rather quiet today, Johnson. Tell me, what's troubling you?"

"It's just this new guy, Mr. Cone," Mr. Johnson said carefully, staring at the bottom of his whiskey glass. "Are we sure we know him as well as we think we do?"

Mr. Smith took only a small puff from his cigar before letting his hand rest back on his desk. "Now really, Johnson," he sighed, "you're a good agent. Your caution has served you well in the past, but paranoia doesn't look so good on you. Mr. Cone has the most impressive resumé I've seen come across my desk in the last fifteen years. I've personally had him vetted by the best men in the business. He's going to be an asset to this office."

That was the response Mr. Johnson had been afraid of getting, but he continued to press his cause. "I understand that, sir. It's just that I'm getting the strangest feeling from this Cone fellow. Don't you think he's a little too perfect? A little too well-qualified?"

Mr. Smith stopped smoking his cigar altogether. A distant look came into his eyes as he mulled over the possibilities. "You don't suppose--"

"Yes," said Mr. Johnson, "I think he's a plant."

Note: I'm a mom, not a dad, but I'm pretty sure I only thought of this because my father-in-law tortures me with these kinds of stories almost constantly.

My wife and I are at the winery with my parents and the guy pouring samples is just flirting with all of the women, including my mom and wife, and telling dirty jokes, which is no big deal, but I don't really appreciate him calling wine "panty dropper" when he pours it for my mom. That kind of weird stuff, y'know?

Then he tells a story that he has an identical twin brother, and when they were infants, people would always ask his mother how she tells the two of them apart.

"I can tell them apart by their balls,"

And we're all like, "Jesus, enough with the gross out humor already," but he finishes the joke; "One of the babies bawls all day, the other bawls all night,"

So my dad was in a choir a long time ago and the sopranos were having trouble hitting a high a in one of the songs they were doing

The director says "alright i think we'll take a break and get back to that part"

Without a beat my dad responds "i guess that would be a Hiatus"

He still tells the story of the time he told the joke like 10 years later.

We're sitting at dinner with some friends of the family, one of which is sitting in a wheelchair. My father looks up and begins to tell a story about his time growing up living with the heavy metal crowd.

"You know, the wheelchairs, the crutches, the walkers, all those heavy metal bitches."

Face-Palm

Sitting down for story time one afternoon, my grandfather began telling us the story of his trip to the Arctic, "It was a treacherous journey, but we finally made it to our destination, the North Pole. It was a huge sigh of relief for my exploration team and me because we knew that from that point on, it was all downhill from there,".

Classic. We miss you dearly.

When my girlfriend and I was climbing up several stories in an apartment to go to our spot to practice dancing, I complained that it'd be easier to just practice on the first floor.

Her: I don't want to, we'd get so many stares!

Me: We can't possibly get any more stairs than here.

I tell myself that she thinks I'm cool every time

My 6th grade teacher had a reputation of being the meanest, strictest teacher on campus, but once I made it through his class, I realized he could be a jokester, too.

-In math class, he liked to tell a long, complicated story about a boy encountering a genie, eventually wishing for some odd things, just to end it with the punchline, "Gee, I'm a tree." (geometry)

-Another one of his long jokes consisted of a man being chased by a hearse. In a fit of desperation, he throws some Halls throat lozenges at it...."and the coffin went away."

-During study time, he would sometimes grab a balloon from his desk, blow it up, and proceed to slowly let air out of it, just to produce the squeaky noise.

-His favorite short joke: "Doctor, doctor, I broke my arm in three places!" "I advise you to stay out of those places."

-He was also probably the all-time leader of correcting, "Can I go to the bathroom?"

-He would also occasionally play opera music at the end of the day, not dismissing the class until we made it through an entire song without laughing.

-There were also a couple words that incited a specific reaction from him. Many of these words showed up often in history class, which is his favorite subject (probably because of all the jokes):

• CARGO - "cargo beep beep".

• RAY - Whenever the word or name "ray" was mentioned, he would always respond with "You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, but ya doesn't have to call me Johnson." Needless to say, we hated the math lesson about rays.

• HUDSON - During mentions of the Hudson River in history, he would always sing back "HUDSON 3-2-700."

• OKLAHOMA - Whenever Oklahoma came across, he would sing the famous line from Oklahoma! the musical. (with an especially long "ohhhhhhh!")

• SURELY - "...and don't call me Shirley." (but of course, who doesn't respond with that?)

• GERONIMOOOO!!!! - pretty self explanatory.

• Sticking with these obscure quotes and references, his two favorite days of the year are November 5th and March 15th.

Anyway, it was a fun year with that teacher. I'll add more of his quirks if I think of any.

-Also,

I just came back from a holiday back to the UK to visit friends and family (am an expat).

While we were there we went to a nice community festival, with some great beers. An American friend of a friend proudly proclaimed that he’d bought a pint of red stout.

Looking up at the board, and seeing the name of the beer, my eyes lit up: a golden opportunity had just presented itself.

‘Nah mate, that’s not red stout, it’s called Red Stoat. You do know what a stoat is, right?

[confusion]

‘Well, it’s a little rodent, a bit like a weasel. You know how you can tell the difference between a stoat and a weasel?’

‘Er..’

‘Well’, I says, ‘a weasel is weasily identifiable, and a stoat is stoatally different.’

Cue a puzzled look on the guys face, and a moment’s silence, broken by me and my friend pissing ourselves laughing, not at the joke of course, but at his reaction.

So this was all very well and good, just another in the litany of bad jokes that floats in my wake, and I thought the story ended there.

Karma, however, had other plans…

A few days later, we’re up in the Lake District, walking back to the hotel after a pub dinner. As we’re walking down the road, we see a small carnivorous rodent dragging the recently deceased body of a rabbit back to its home. It was either a stoat, or a weasel, but you know what? I honestly had no way to tell which…

We were swapping stories while pregaming in our hotel room and my one buddy was telling me a story about how his room mate broke his tequila shotgun. One of my other buddies asked "what's a tequila shotgun?" And I replied, "it's what you use tequila mockingbird."

I can finally join your ranks!

We were out to dinner last night and my wife was telling a story about how she saw a tumbleweed rolling down the road on her way home from work in downtown Detroit. She thought it very unusual and as she got closer she realized it was just a giant ball of hair blowing down the road, to which I replied...

"Would you say you saw a tumbleWEAVE?"

God it feels good to be hilarious. I need to actually get a kid now so I can keep chasing this high...

Let me tell you a story about the first dad joke I ever told.

I was 4 years old and running around outside without shoes on. When my mom noticed she said, "Starkid08 you get in here with your bare feet!"

Without missing a step I look down at my feet and say," These aren't my BEAR feet, these are my PEOPLE feet!"

We still recall this story from time to time when talking to my many aunts.