Joke Trap (2 page)

I was cracking up as Ben told me more of his father’s mangled-up lyrics, but Ben just shook his head. ‘At least your Dad is trying to be funny,’ he said, ‘my dad is funny without even trying.’

‘I’m embarrassed just like you,’ he confessed. ‘There’s a guy at school who plays
bass guitar and we’ve been talking about becoming a duo. I’d play harmonica and Stevie would be on guitar. But that would mean my dad giving Stevie a lift in our car. And once Dad’s in the car…’

Ben shook his head. ‘Can you imagine me sitting there next to Stevie with Dad singing, “She’s got a chicken to ride” at the top of his voice?’

Ben let out a defeated little groan. ‘It’s easier just to give up on the idea of a duo.’

As the bus started to climb the hill to our local shops, Ben came up with the idea of a pact.

‘We’ll join forces,’ he said. ‘We’ll try to cure both dads. No more Dad Jokes. No more Dad Singing. It’ll be a joint project.’

Ben let out a little whoop of excitement as we stumbled off the bus. All we needed was a great idea for how to go about it.

W
e swapped embarrassing dad stories as we walked towards Ben’s house.

Ben grinned. ‘Do you know the song by John Lennon called “Give Peace a Chance”?’ he asked, flinging his bag off his shoulder.

Ben knows more about most music — especially old music — than I do, but I knew that song pretty well. I sang a line just to prove it, ‘All we are saying is give peace a chance.’

‘That’s the one,’ Ben said, picking up his bag
again. ‘Well, Dad was singing it in the car one day and, I’m not kidding, he was singing, “All I am saying is give Jesus pants”.’

We both started laughing. What did Ben’s dad think was going on in the song? That Jesus normally dresses in a robe, but John Lennon would rather see him wearing pants? That John Lennon had some weird thing about trousers?

We were still spluttering with laughter when we reached the corner store. We bought a packet of jelly snakes each for the rest of the walk to Ben’s house. As we wandered along, stuffing in handfuls of lollies, I tried to explain the most annoying of my father’s problems — the Joke Mouth.

‘Every time my dad’s about to make a Dad Joke,’ I said, ‘he gets this little twitch in his face.

It’s like he wants to smile but is trying to control it. Then his face goes all serious and he clamps down his mouth, so it makes this tense, straight line. It’s as if he’s fighting himself.

‘My mum’s the one who started calling it the Joke Mouth. It’s like an early warning system. I’ll ask Dad a question like, “What’s on the TV?” and straightaway I’ll see the Joke Mouth start to form. As soon as I see it, I make a run for my bedroom.’

Ben frowned. ‘So then what does your dad do?’

‘Oh, he’ll try to get in quick. He’ll fire off his lame joke, and it will follow me like an Exocet missile, “What’s on the TV?” he’ll shout, “a pot plant and a copy of the TV guide, that’s what’s on the TV. “ And then, just in case I don’t get it, he’ll point to the TV set and the pot plant sitting on top of it, with this huge grin on his face.’

Ben was too busy laughing at the stupid joke to be very sympathetic. ‘Poor you,’ is all he said.

When we got to Ben’s place we sat in his bedroom for ages, trying to think of at least one
good idea for how to cure the dads. We stared at the floor, we stared at the walls, we stared at each other. We went to the kitchen for muesli bars. Then we went and annoyed Ben’s little sister, Hattie, who was out the back playing with my little sister, Mattie. (Hattie and Mattie are best friends, just like Ben and me.) When we got bored of that we had a go on Ben’s old trampoline.

After a long, long while we started coming up with ideas. I just don’t know that they were very practical.

‘I know,’ I finally said, ‘we’ll get some lipstick and write the correct words of all the songs on the inside of your dad’s windscreen, so then whenever he puts on a CD all he has to do is look up at the windscreen and he’ll be set.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Nah, he gets so many songs wrong, the words would end up covering the whole windscreen and he wouldn’t be able to see out. There’d only be room for two little eye holes, the rest of it would be solid song lyrics.’

We were silent for a little while.

‘I know,’ Ben eventually said, ‘why don’t we get buckets of water and connect them to pulleys all over your house and then every time your dad makes a lame joke, we’ll pull a rope and water will pour all over him. That’ll stop him making jokes.’

It was my turn to shake my head. ‘He makes so many stupid jokes, the whole house would end up flooded. Besides, the worst ones are always in the car and we couldn’t put a bucket of water above his seat — not unless we cut a hole in the top of the car, and even I think that’s a bit extreme.’

After a bit more floor gazing we decided to go for a walk. Our suburb was having a
council clean-up so there was heaps of junk out on the street, ready to be picked up.

We walked slowly, hoping something would inspire us. We tried to turn every bit of junk into a solution to our problem. There was an old sack, so I suggested we could stuff it over my dad’s head so he couldn’t see anything to make jokes about.

Then we found an old football scarf and Ben thought we could wrap it around his dad’s mouth so he couldn’t sing. Finally Ben spotted a rusty old electric train set with the battery still connected, and came up with his biggest idea so far. ‘We could connect the electrical wires to your fruit bowl. Then every time your dad picked up a pear to do the Pear Joke, he’d get this tiny electric shock.’

I made Ben put the train back. ‘I don’t think pears are very good conductors of electricity. Besides, Dad’d probably just invent another bad joke to cover the situation.’