That’s actually kind of funny. At least he doesn’t say he is going to spit straight up in the air and catch it in his mouth while you are lying in bed together and then when you pull the covers over your head to avoid it let out a long fart.
That only works once anyway.
Not quite a one-liner, but my dad this shit to me for years. And I never figured it out, until he told me.
Dad is an accountant, and went to college.
I figure dad must be a genius in math.
So I’d regularly give him spoken math problems - “Hey dad, what’s 47 times 63?”
He’d spit out a long, official sounding product off the top of his head: “Why, it’s 2743” (not the correct answer, I know…now.) I’d shout out increasingly difficult calculations - “OK, so what is the square root of 3985?” and he’d almost immediately call out a plausible (though incorrect) number. I thought he was a calculating savant for years.
I finally called him on it one day in high school. He laughed, shrugged, and told me he just made up the answers, that it was easier than explaining to a little kid how to do the actual calculations.
Dad, you bastard. 
‘Because why is a crooked letter and zed is no better.’
My mum did answer my questions, but after looking children, I know the whole
insert question here
insert answer here
but why?
insert answer here
but why?
insert answer here
but why?
insert answer here
but why?
insert answer here
can get annoying.
Here’s a line my Dad used all the time that I never understood as a kid, but actually strikes me as borderline clever now.
Let’s say we’d just watched an old Universal monster movie on the Saturday night ***Creature ******Feature (***hosted by “The Creep”) on channel 5 in New York City. My little brother would be scared, and would ask, “Daddy, what would we do if the Wolfman came to our house?” Presumably, he wanted to be reassured that Dad had a gun loaded with silver bullets, in anticipation of this very thing.
My Dad would respond by asking, “Why is he coming to OUR house? Why can’t he go to the Clarkes’ house or the Conlins’ house? Why does he have to come to OUR house?”
Dad used that line a lot, for questions of that type. What would we do if zombies or Martians attacked our house? “Why are they attacking OUR house? What’s so great about OUR house that the Martians want it so bad?”
Indeed, that is exactly as often as it would work, but it would be hilarious!
Arrrgghh, my corny ass mom is the WORST with these things, but nowadays, she tortures my kid with them, so, I’m mostly off the hook. I blame her Virginia upbringing, because she has a zillion of them.
The one I’ve never even figured out what it means; when I stood in front of the t.v. to block it, she would say, “Was your daddy a glass maker?”
I mean, I guess I know what it means now, but back then I pictured him maybe making a new tv between me and her, and i couldn’t figure out how being a GLASS maker was necessarry for that. Even understanding what it means now, it’s still sooooo dumb and corny and forced. Grr.
My dad used to make me smile all the time though, with this one…‘Don’t go away mad. (beat) Just go away.’
ETA: I just noticed that MsWhatsit’s grandma was also a fan of corny sayings to keep us out in front of the tv too. MsWhatsit, why the hell were you and I always in the way of the damn tv?
Forgive me for resurrecting a dead thresd- I just remembered a line my Mom used whenever she needed the bathroom and someone else was in it.
She’d knock and ask, “Are you nearly done?”
The occupant would say, “Yes.”
Mom would reply, “Write home.”
If you don’t know the ancient (and not especially funny) Irish joke that spawned the line, it’s in the spoiler box below:
Young Paddy, who lived in a small rural town in Ireland, was planning to move to London, where he meant to seek his fortune. As he was packing, his elderly neighbor, Mrs. Dunne, stopped by.
Tearfully, she said, “Paddy, me own son Cornelius left Ireland and moved to London ten years ago. In all that time, he’s never called me or sent me so much as a note. When you get to London, could you find him, and tell him how happy it would make me if he’d just write home?”
Paddy asked, “Do you have an address for him?” Mrs. Dunne then gave Paddy an old piece of paper saying:
Neely Dunne
London, England WC3
Paddy caught a plane to London, and as he stepped into the terminal at Heathrow, he saw a door labeled “WC” (in England, "WC stands for water closet, which means the bathroom). Paddy thought, “Sure and this is gonna be easy.” He walked into the lavatory, then knocked on stall #3 and asked, “Are you Neely Dunne?”
A voice from the stall said, “Yes, but there’s no bloody paper in here.”
Paddy said, “That’s no excuse- write home to your mother.”
How’d I miss this thread the first time 'round?
Dad, whenever someone attempted to toss something into a bin and missed: “In it, not at it.”
Mine said, “Hit him to get his attention.” His first grandson broke him of that.
He stopped threatening to give his kids something to cry about by the time I came along.
Got that one from Mom.
Mine said, “Meat, potato, and vegetable.”
(Driving past a cemetery):
“People are dying to get into there!”
“I’m thirsty.”
“It’s not thirsty, it’s Monday!”
“Dad! We just bought tickets to see [whatever band]!”
“Wow! Is it in color?!”
…and millions more…
[QUOTE]
“Quit crying or I will give you something to cry about.”
[QUOTE]
Shucky darn I have said that to my kids more than once!
My grandmother used to tell me “No man will ever marry you if you hold the wash cloth like that”. I knew he didn’t care one whit about how I washed dishes.
When my children say, “I want some more fruit” (or whatever), at the dinner table, my unvarying response is, “I want a pony.” I am very gradually training them to say, “may I please have some more fruit?” It’s taking a long time.
“HEY!”
I say that whenever we’re driving and see a stack of hay in a field, or a truck with hay. Gets them every time - especially if it has been quiet for a few minutes.
Dad used to open a fortune cookie and read “Women will flock to you” every single time. Dad, sorry that never happened, try as you might.
(At the Bunny dinner table)
Mom: Would you like a roll?
Stepdad: Nothing like a good roll!
(I didn’t know what they hell that meant until I was 25. Thank god.)
Also, not so much a bad one-liner, but my stepdad said grace on auto-pilot. Originally a farm kid, every night he’d pray for rain. No matter the weather. He even prayed for rain when he said grace over a cold supper being eaten by candlelight because the power was out…due to a hurricane. “Lord, if it be in thy will, we could use some rain.”
My grandfather – 50 years before pi day – would go on at holiday desserts about how pie are not round, pi r square.
Any time we went out to eat as a family, my stepfather would say, “Don’t drink your dinner!”
It sounded like he had a bunch of alcoholics instead of standard-issue soda-crazy kids.
I can see that that one made a big impact on you : )
My mom used to say “Ubangi? Ubetcha!” when I was little. I had no idea what it meant, but I thought it was funny, so I repeated it a lot. Often in front of their friends. Got a few weird looks.
I didn’t realize until years later that it was the punchline to some joke on TV (Laugh-In, probably).
Whenever a bug would splat on the windshield Dad would say “Bet he doesn’t have the guts to do THAT again!”
Har har har.
Dear Dog. Was my mother one the only one that said “Better than a slap in the face with a wet fish”? Or “Better than a slap in the face with a limp noodle”?
Or in response to “I hate (math, zuchinni, fill in the blank with things kids hate)!” “Well how does it feel about you?”
When my son was little starting about age 5 I guess, I’d tell him one of two (or both) riddles every Halloween.
You’ve heard of skinless franks haven’t you? What do you call a frankless skin?
What did Roy Rogers call the sugar cubes he fed to his horse?
Hollow weenies
Trigger treats
Got that one from Mom.
My sister used that line, followed by, “…even though you ARE a PANE.”