Day 3. 27 pages, 9,103 words.

I still get a laugh out of this every time.

I’m not sure how I felt about Dad Jokes back when I was a kid. They probably annoyed me, because dads are annoying almost by definition. As a pre-fatherhood adult, I think I was increasingly amused by them because that’s just the sort of person I am. I love a good corny joke. A groan is as good as a laugh, and it plays to my strengths as regards puns and wordplay.

I suppose, when I became a dad myself, it was really more a case of finally finding myself in the role I’d always needed to assume, as befit my joke-level. I had always been a Dad Joke Teller, and now I could do it in a socially celebrated context.

I became.

And while the groaner-pun or forehead-smacker language joke among consenting adults is something of a low form of comedy, the requisite audience for a Dad Joke – specifically, a young child just learning the meanings of words and the cultural contract of dialogue – elevates the form to the level of important – nay, hallowed – parental sharing.

She may not like it, but Wump is taking part in a ritual of communication as old as the human race. For the first time in her life she is playing the role of straight man to her father’s comic in a cultural comedy sketch – and learning, in the process, what the two roles mean to our society and communication methods.

This week, I’m mostly editing university theses for money.