Joke Trap (6 page)

But boy was it silent. Deadly silent.

Plus there was another problem. We’d had such a good time collecting all the stupid song lyrics and all the lame jokes that we’d sort of come to like them.

Finally Ben broke the silence. ‘Dad, I think Hattie and Mattie would quite like it if you put on one of their CDs. Maybe the Britney Spears.’

Ben’s dad brightened up a bit. ‘You mean the one where she dates the pen?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ben, smiling, ‘the one where she dates the pen.’

Ben’s dad whacked on the CD and soon we were all singing at the top of our voices, especially to the chorus, ‘Oops I dated a pen’ — the girls doing all the actions.

We turned the corner into our neighbour-hood and Ben’s dad slowed right down as we cruised past the cemetery.

‘You go first,’ Dad said to me.

‘No, please,’ I replied, ‘be my guest.’

Neither of us said anything for a minute. Then a pained voice came from the back of the car.

‘Nooooooooo,’ said Mattie, ‘we’re about to miss out.’

‘Quick,’ said Hattie, ‘can someone say it?’

So Ben’s dad stopped the car and we all got out and stood at the cemetery gates. Luckily no-one was around so we could be as noisy as we wanted.

I was like a conductor standing out the front. ‘One, two, three — what is this place?’

And everyone chorused back, ‘It’s the dead centre of town.’

Then I said, ‘And what are people doing to get in here?

And everyone answered, ‘They are dying to get in.’

‘So why don’t they let in the people who live around here?’

‘Because you have to be DEAD, that’s why.’

After that we all jumped back in the car and sang for the rest of the way home. All our old favourites.

That night, in both households, there were some serious negotiations. Ben told his dad he could sing as loudly as he liked, and with whatever words he liked — EXCEPT when he was driving around members of the new band.

Meanwhile, I thought some more about making new friends at school. I reckoned that if they were friends worth having, they would be happy to put up with my dad and his terrible jokes.

So I told Dad he could do as many Dad Jokes as he liked — just as long as he never, EVER AGAIN, in front of ME or ANYBODY ELSE, did the pull-my-finger fart joke.

And he agreed.

Looking back it seems like we went to a lot of effort just to get our two dads to make a few simple changes. And we went through a lot of fuss to realise that we quite liked their stupid jokes and stupid songs.

But, as one of the great bands put it, sometimes in life, it’s a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll.

I love telling really bad jokes. I call them Dad Jokes. They are jokes that are not funny in the first place, but then get told again and again and again. I love telling them because I get to hear my son groaning, and saying, ‘Daaaaad, don’t.’

In this story I wanted to imagine what would happen if my son finally snapped and decided to get his revenge. I figured the story would have lots of action — plus the chance to tell a whole lot of Dad Jokes!

Richard Glover
is the author of the kids’ book,
The Dirt Experiment,
and of comedy books such as
The Dag’s Dictionary
and
Desperate Husbands.
He presents the Drive show on ABC radio in Sydney.

When I was a little fellow we used to do lots of singing in the car. Dad would play old Hank Williams tapes and we would sing along — all six of us. My dad, unlike Ben’s, actually knew all the words to all the songs. The rest of us didn’t have the foggiest, but it never stopped us from having a good crack at them. I think every father should have the right to make bad cornball jokes to his kids. I fully intend to. In fact, I have already begun and my oldest boy is only three — poor bugger!

Gus Gordon
is an illustrator based on Sydney’s northern beaches. He has illustrated nearly 50 books for children including
The Dirt Experiment
by Richard Glover.

The ABC ‘Wave’ device is a trademark of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation and is used
under licence by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia.

First published in Australia in 2007
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited

Copyright © text Richard Glover 2007
Copyright © illustrations Gus Gordon 2007

The right of Richard Glover and Gus Gordon to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Richard Glover and Gus Gordon
Joke Trap / Richard Glover and Gus Gordon.
ISBN: 978-0-7333-2055-2 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9540-6 (ePub)
For children.

I. Gordon, Gus.
II. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
III. Title.
A823.4