For years, I have had a daily desk calendar, the kind where you tear off a page every day to reveal something new. The calendars are always different…and entertaining. One year I had a Bushisms calendar that consisted of the 43rd president’s unconventional statements, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms, and semantic or linguistic errors in public speaking (and no, I did not copy that verbatim from Wikipedia! I changed a word or two, thank you very much). A few examples:
- “There’s an old saying in Tennessee—I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, ‘Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.’”
- “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
- “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
At the time, I believed George W. was hands down the worst leader this country had ever seen. In the light of the past three years, I know better and actually miss the guy. But that’s neither here nor there.
Side note: if something is ‘neither here nor there,’ where the hell is it…?!
Another year I had a Word of the Day calendar. This was a fun way to expand my vocabulary by introducing me to words like “jerkwater” (remote and unimportant; trivial) and “interrobang” (a punctuation mark designed for use especially at the end of an exclamatory rhetorical question). If you’re wondering, WTF is an interrobang?! – that’s exactly right. It’s the combination question mark/exclamation point.
This year, Tara got me a Dad Joke calendar. Which…if you know me at all…is perfect. A dad joke is defined as a generally inoffensive pun, stereotypically told by fathers, either with sincere humorous intent or to provoke a negative reaction to its overly-simplistic humor.
This calendar is extremely hit-or-miss. Some days are really funny:
- What does a thesaurus eat for breakfast? A synonym roll.
- What do you do with a dead chemist? You barium.
- How do you know the moon is going broke? It’s down to its last quarter.
- I used to be a bartender for the mob. It was whiskey business.
- I hate negative numbers and I will stop at nothing to avoid them.
Others are groan-worthy.
- Why did no one take the bus to school? It wouldn’t fit through the door.
- To what dog do other dogs tell their problems? A complaint bernard.
- “Dad, you put your shoes on the wrong feet!” “But they’re the only feet I have.”
Good or bad, I have to admit, I always look forward to tearing off a new page every morning. It’s the first thing I do when I get to work.
And yes, we’re still going to work. Which feels almost quaint when so many of my friends and family—most of them, actually—are on lockdown and working from home (if they haven’t been temporarily laid off). It almost makes me want to, I don’t know…apologize?! (Nice interrobang, huh?).
What can I say. Things are different here. There is caution (and various precautions) but no panic. My boss gave us the option to work from home if we are uncomfortable being here, but we’re a small office (13 total when everybody is here, which is rare). I am fine coming in everyday, though I fully expect we’ll postpone the two onsite events we have planned the beginning of April.
We are currently beginning work on the summer issue of our parenting magazine, which always entails me going out and interviewing people. I am giving everybody the option of doing phone interviews instead. It’ll be interesting to see how many decide to go this route.
By the way, if we do end up quarantined, don’t let me forget to grab my Dad Joke calendar off my desk, okay?
Mark My Words 
Leave a comment