Tethered Puns

Almost 10 years ago now when my daughter’s mom was pregnant with her—waddling miserably towards the tail-end of her third trimester and about ready to pop—she looked forlornly at her figure in the mirror one day and announced, “Omigod I’m as big as a house!”

And so I, the Rico Suave motherfucker that I am, popped my head up from the book I was reading on the bed and responded thusly without missing a beat:

“Well, baby girl, if you’re a house then you’re my dream home...”

I thought our relationship was my rock on which we would build one hundred stories, but there were termites in the foundation. Unfortunately she ultimately turned out to be a mobile home that couldn’t stay tethered to a single lot for more than a few years at a time as, a short time later, she up-and-skedaddled from our lives and has been a deadbeat mom to our little girl ever since. (My daughter and I built a beautiful, cozy little bungalow-for-two anyways.)

Anyway, does that qualify as a pun, or just an extended metaphor? If not, sorry, I just always thought that was a good line and I wanted to humble-brag a bit.

We'd been going through names from name generator for my niece or nephew, coming to the end of our tether..

Me: "why don't you just call it whatever you want to call it"

Brother: "well that would be a long name, I can't just call it 'whatever-you-want-to-call-it'"