They say laughter can keep you healthy. If that’s true, one Kensington, Maryland, family is protecting the health of their whole neighborhood.
As we know, a pandemic and stay-at-home order can take a pretty heavy toll. Tom Schruben was no exception.
“I’m normally a pretty happy person. About the second week into the lockdown, I was just really grumpy,” said Tom.
So, his wife, Ann, had an idea. She had seen someone online posting “bad dad jokes” on a whiteboard outside their home to entertain passersby during the pandemic.
“So my wife thought, well, you love bad jokes and so why don’t you try doing that. I didn’t really want to do it at first” he said.
It turned out Schruben already had a “bad dad joke” book on hand — a gift from his youngest daughter, who’s 11.
“So (my wife) said, ‘You don’t even have to think about it very much, just put a joke out and see what happens,'” Schruben said. “So I did.”
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Since they live on a street that is very popular with dog walkers, it didn’t take long to get a response.
“After the first person laughed I thought, ‘Oh, well this is fun. This is kind of cool,’” he said. “So I’ve just been putting it out every day since.”
So, what’s a “bad dad joke,” you may ask? It’s a corny joke that usually makes you groan before you chuckle, often told by a dad over and over again to their cringing children.
“My favorite so far is ‘I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon … I’ll let you know,’” Schruben said.
Often, his family sits on the porch so they can hear the reactions as people read the joke of the day. They also get together to decide what the new joke will be each day. It’s not just a source of fun and family bonding for them, it’s having the same impact on others.
“Several people have told me they call their children or grandchildren each day with the joke. So they go on their walk and call their grandchild and tell them the joke and the kids groan,” he said.
In some cases, the daily groaners are bringing a little levity to people who are struggling with the coronavirus itself.
“I got an email from a woman who lives in Kensington and her father is in the hospital up in Delaware with COVID,” he said, “She can’t go see him, but she‘s been sending him the jokes each day. She takes a picture and sends him the joke to his cell phone in the hospital. And it got him motivated enough to tell some of his own jokes.”
So for now, armed with the book of dad jokes he got from his daughter last Christmas, Schruben plans to keep people smiling through the pandemic with jokes like one he posted over Mother’s Day Weekend:
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Listen up: Happy Mother’s Day. #dadhumor #neighborhood #family #socialdistancing #tombaddadjokes
