"Dadberly: A Semester Swap Comedy"

There are moments in life when you wish you could just press a big, red “undo” button and never look back. For me, that moment stretched into an entire semester of my life. You see, my dad is a swap class teacher. He’s been teaching the class for a few years now, and usually, everything goes pretty smoothly. That is, until this year.

For reasons only the cosmos or perhaps a mischievous deity could fathom, there was an odd number of students this semester. Enter Kimberly—a hot brunette, the literal talk of the town, and the unwitting center of my very, very awkward ordeal.

And just like that, *poof*—my dad swapped bodies with Kimberly.

“Good morning, sport!” Kimberly said in a voice that was a perplexing mix of chipper dad and sultry school diva, while making breakfast in a tank top and tight jeans that screamed ‘mid-life crisis.’

“Hi, dad… erm, Kimberly... er, Dadberly?” I muttered, staring at the floor tiles like they held the secrets of the universe. Why couldn’t the ground just swallow me up?

“Ah, don’t be like that! It’s just for a semester, then I’ll be back to my old self,” Dadberly chirped, flipping pancakes with a flair that was almost impressive, if it wasn’t so horrifying.

“Oh, look at them! They’re like fluffy clouds!” Kimberly’s dad voice chimed, but the momentary joy was quickly squished by the sight in front of me. Seeing my dad's eyes behind Kimberly’s big, doe-like lashes was something I schlepped straight out of a horrorscape.

“So, Dadberly, my friends are going to totally lose it when they see you… her... her-you at school,” I said, buttering my pancake sluggishly. “Think you can, you know, lay low?”

Dadberly laughed. “Dance with the devil, son! Or should I say, flex with your crush?”

Just when I thought things couldn’t get weirder, Dadberly leaned in conspiratorially, mascara-laden eyelashes nearly tangling with my hair. "By the way, about that fake date we’re having tonight...”

I choked on my orange juice. “Wait. What?”

“Your secret crush on Kimberly? Well, now that I’m her, I thought, why not play love guru slash dad for a day? You’re 17, you need practice.” Dadberly winked, revealing a sliver of lacy bra and some serious second-hand embarrassment for me.

“Why are you like this?” I groaned, as Dadberly straightened up and struck a pose that would make any supermodel envious. “Just why?”

Later that evening, Dadberly came out dressed for the 'fake date.' The gray top barely contained the ample, borrowed bust, and the jeans hugged *his*... *her*... what even was pronoun etiquette in this scenario?

I was mid-gulp in suppressing hysteria when my actual crush, Caroline, texted me. She wanted to discuss our math project. I started to panic.

“Oh my G—Uh, Dadberly! Caroline is coming over!”

“Perfect!” Dadberly said in a sultry voice that didn’t suit the corn flakes I was eating. “I’m here to improve your dating skills and your grades! Two birds, one grape!”

Caroline arrived, and her eyes lit up seeing Kimberly ... my dad ... making cookies.

“Kimberly, wow! You’re at Eric’s place?”

“Just a quiet night,” Dadberly said, shooting me a smile that should have sent me running for the hills. “Helping young Eric here woo his sweetheart!”

I groaned inwardly. Kimberly’s body with my dad’s spirit had just become my unintentional wingman.

“Uh, would you like some cookies?” I offered Caroline, trying to act normal.

She giggled. “Sure, Eric. You're looking really stressed. Relax, it's just math!”

If only she knew.

This story was generated by user zach3 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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