WANT to hear a joke about paper?” I ask. “Nevermind it’s tearable . . .” As if to confirm the punchline, my daughter rolls her eyes and says, slowly, and unironically, “Daddy. That. Is. Not. Funny.”
Undeterred, I try another, a classic: “Do you know how you make a tissue dance? Put a little boogie in it!”
She sighs.
“That’s not a classic,” the eight-year-old says, then puts her headphones back on and announces she’s going back to watching YouTube.
I had hoped, perhaps unrealistically, that my audience of one for my dad jokes would be around a bit longer than age seven. But kids, they grow up so fast, don’t they?
Dad jokes, though, never grow up. They’re practically eternal, passed from generation to generation, growing cornier with age.…
