One of the great pleasures of being a dad is getting to tell lots of dad jokes. I especially like the ones that come in response to an odd, conversational turn of phrase that my son picks up and starts using repeatedly.
For example, Sam went through a real phase of saying:
Do you know what?
To which I would always reply:
"I know James Watt."
(James Watt is someone I used to work with. He was a very funny man.)
Similar to this:
Do you know, Daddy...?
"Yes, I do, he's sitting right next to you."
(I am, however, stamping down on "D'ynattamean?" as I do not want Sam to grow up to be late 80s Neneh Cherry.)
My favourite at the moment is:
The thing is...
"A member of the Fantastic Four."
And, of course, there's that great old favourite for whenever a child trips over his words or just can't get them to come out right.
"That's easy for you to say."
Plus, let's not forget one I stole from my own parents...
Well...
"What good's a well without water?"
Lately, Sam has started saying "To be fair" a lot, for no reason at all, and certainly not when he's being fair... or unfair for that matter. I'm struggling to think up a smart response for that one though.
Any more smart-arse dad remarks I can add to my repertoire? Do tell.
You need to get out more. Oh, hang on...
ReplyDeleteThis resonates with me. My boy's a bit older than Sam, so I've been through pretty much exactly the same in recent years.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a response to "To be fair..." could be "...is to have light hair" which has the added benefit of rhyming.
We had a brief spell of thinking knock-knock jokes were the height of comic genius too. "Boo"-"Boo who?"-"Don't cry" and "Tish"-"Tish who?"-"Bless you" were inexplicably popular.
Then came the whole "What do you call a man with a spade on his head?" variety, which culminated in this triptych:
"What do you call a man in a raincoat?" - "Mac"
"What do you call a man in two raincoats?" - "Max"
"What do you call a man in two raincoats, in a churchyard?" - "Max Bygraves"
...which he thought was hilarious, despite not having a clue who Max Bygraves was. Ditto "...a man with three wooden heads."
A recent joke that has gone down quite well is "What kind of dog can do magic?" - "A labracadabrador." It's all about puns and wordplay at the moment. Also, little story jokes, like A tortoise was mugged by two snails. A policeman asked the tortoise if he could describe the attackers, and the tortoise said, 'I don't know, it all happened so fast.'
There are also things that aren't really jokes at all, that have just become house/family tropes. So the first answer to any question that is food related has become a speculative "Onions?" I can't even remember why. The things we'll say to make our kids laugh, eh?
Aww, lovely stuff from you dads!
ReplyDeleteI’m getting nostalgic for those days as quite a while ago for me now. Mr WIAA has an Uncle Bob so whenever we threw in the phrase ‘and Bob’s your uncle’ we always had to add ‘oh no, he’s your great-uncle!’
ReplyDeleteThis one from Billy Connolly but we also often threw in ‘if you fall and break your leg, don’t come running to me’. And oldie indeed.