Well, I haven't really kept it a secret, but I haven't been altogether forthright about it either: I am beginning to inherit more of my father's humor. As the years pass, I find the corny jokes come easier, timelier, and kernelier. But most upsettingly, I am beginning to laugh at his jokes way past the statute of limitations, and I chuckle at them as if it were the first time all over again. This cannot be so. I have not lived a life of sarcastic wit only to fall into the gutter trap of corn...but it appears that our futures are not in our own hands.

At Christmas dinner, a saucer holding a slab of butter shaped as an evergreen tree sat at either end of the table. Halfway through the meal, my grandmother mentioned that the butter nearest her, having taken its share of hits with the ol' knife, had come to resemble a turkey. We all looked at the butter dish somberly and nodded in agreement. My dad sat smirking at the opposite end of the spread. I looked at him, my mouth twitching already. This was going to be good or idiotic—but either would amuse, I was certain.

He raised the butter dish at his elbow and studied it with all seriousness. "And mine's a butterball," he replied. The table groaned. I was grinning like a fool and looked at Mom with wide eyes, raised brow, shrugging. I began to nod then, with great pain of acknowledgement.

"...that was actually pretty good..." I began to shake in silent laughter. My mother patted my hand soothingly.

"Yeees, Laaauuuura. It waaaaas..." she stroked my hair and blinked slowly, and you could just see the pity in her eyes.

I am becoming my father.