What’s The First Thing That Goes Through A Bug’s Head When It Hits Your Windshield? | by Frank Frankly | Aug, 2025

I stared out the passenger side window at the autumn foliage as we drove north on I-93 into Vermont. Red and orange leaves littered the side of the road, having just fallen from the trees. This stretch of highway was mostly empty, a slick two lane road winding through the hills. The odometer might as well have been stuck at 90 MPH as we flew down the passing lane.

Every once in a while we would catch up to a slower car that for some reason was also driving in the passing lane with no other cars in sight. My dad wouldn’t slow down or move over, instead as we were catching up he would flash his high beams to let the other “asshole” know to move over.

It was circa an undisclosed year and I was a teenager. We were on our way to a manly sports tournament for my travel team and had already been in the car for hours. All of my memories from this time are in Standard Definition, 4 : 3 Aspect Ratio. It wasn’t for another several years until I could afford to have memories in High Definition.

Most of the drive was quiet, except for the radio, which seemed to play the popular song of the time on loop. We spent a lot of weekends in the car. I played way too much sports and traveled constantly. And we lived together, so there wasn’t much left to say anyway.

We had been driving for hours in mostly the middle of nowhere so forgive me for losing count on how many bugs had sacrificed their lives to decorate the windshield. For some reason, with this particular bug splatter, my dad broke the silence.

“What’s the first thing that goes through a bug’s head when it hits the windshield?”

I braced myself for a terrible punchline.

To me, my dad was pretty embarrassing. I think most teens probably feel that way about their parents. He had this habit of saying and doing things he thought were hilarious, and just made me want to crawl into a hole when we were around others. The thing that got me, though, was that other adults thought he was genuinely funny. They would sit with each other and chat and laugh. I couldn’t understand it.

Keeping his eyes on the road for the first time that drive: “ It’s ass. “

I chuckled for a second because I thought it was funny. “ OK “ I said. And we finished the drive in silence.

Today, that’s the only joke I can remember my dad ever telling me. I have no idea why this moment stuck with me. There’s nothing special about it. I’m sure there are dozens of moments just like it that I’ve completely forgotten.

Maybe it’s because every time I see a bug hit the windshield now, I think of that joke. And every time I think of the joke, I’m back in that car, on that road, with my dad, heading to another soccer tournament.

A typical dad joke told by a typical dad.

I would love to understand the science of someone becoming a dad and then transitioning from crude, inappropriate jokes to dad jokes.

Recently at work, we were in a weekly team meeting that happened to fall on Good Friday. Someone asked if we’d be getting out early since Sunday was Easter. We weren’t. So I typed into the chat, “ We should have an early relEASTER. “

That’s when I was told I tell too many dad jokes.

I suppose that line hit me like a bug on the windshield.

“ Am I becoming my dad?” “ Oh no… Is my child going to find me cringe? “

No, no, there’s no way, my jokes are hilarious.