If it weren’t for fathers, children’s Halloween candy stashes would remain undisturbed. Many a bug wouldn’t have ceased to buzz around a child’s room. And we would have a big blank before the word “Day” in the holiday that celebrates all dads, everywhere.

While composing this column, I had one particular father in mind: my own. The rest of you can lament as loudly as you want, but this dad can’t be your dad. He’s taken.

My dad raided my Halloween candy stash like any good dad. He joked that he was saving me cavities and calories.

“But don’t you not want cavities neither?” I inquired.

Then Dad sat me upon his knee and taught me not only that adults prefer cavities in their teeth compared to their children’s teeth, but also about using double (or triple) negatives.

Another time, Dad bought a candy bar to share with the family in Barnes and Noble. He broke it into four pieces and gave one to Mom, one to my sister, and one to me. He saved one portion for himself.

For some reason, I leaned over in my chair—probably to prop a book I wanted against the side of my chair—and when I straightened up, my portion of the candy was gone.

Dad had automatically eaten it. He always took his coffee with sweets, and this was no exception. He just finished his candy and picked up mine by default.

Boy, did my mom chew him out.

In the years after that, Dad bought me candy bars upon candy bars. Pounds of chocolate more than made up for that little piece of candy so many years ago.

Thanks for that memory, Dad.

Then there was the episode with the wasp.

Way back when when I was a fledgling, before this humor column was ever syndicated, I looked down during a shower and saw a wasp climbing up the shampoo bottle.

A banshee could not have shrieked louder than I did in that moment. Leaping from the shower, I wrapped myself in a towel and barreled into Dad’s room.

“There’s a wasp in the shower!” I howled. And Dad boldly rose from his bed, grabbed a handful of paper towel, caught the wasp, and sent it down the toilet.

Thanks for that, Dad.

More recently, my dad developed a hand tremor. He didn’t tell me for months. When he sprung the news at me at last, it came with a joke attached.

He had gotten an MRI, he told me, and the doctor told him he had an “unremarkable brain.” There was nothing seriously wrong.

And since I was his kid, he told me maybe my brain was unremarkable, too.

Dad then regaled me with tales of other patients. One patient was asked about his chief complaint and said it was that the phone charger wasn’t working.

Another patient was in distress after eating four Big Macs. “The serving size for Big Macs is one-half of a burger,” Dad remembered the doctor saying.

I’ll remember that every time I’m in McDonalds.

Dad’s hand is still shaky, but he still catches bugs in my room and sneaks candy from the candy bowl. I’m grateful for that.

Because ultimately, those things make my dad my dad.

Thanks, Dad.

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Copyright 2025 Alexandra Paskhaver, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. For more information, check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.